WASHINGTON — Former Los Alamos nuclear weapon scientist Wen Ho Lee, the target of a three-year FBI investigation into alleged Chinese spying, was arrested Friday after he was indicted on 59 charges of mishandling highly classified national defense information.
The federal grand jury in Albuquerque that returned the 45-page indictment did not charge the Taiwan-born engineer with espionage. Officials said that they were unable to find credible evidence that Lee was a spy who provided nuclear weapon secrets to Beijing or anyone else.
The strongly worded indictment marks a dramatic shift in a national security scandal that dominated front pages and much of Capitol Hill earlier this year. But it does not resolve the core question of how China apparently obtained U.S. nuclear weapon secrets, including classified details from America's newest and most sophisticated thermonuclear warhead.
Lee was accused of violating the Atomic Energy Act and the Federal Espionage Act by secretly moving vast quantities of classified nuclear weapon data from a secure computer at Los Alamos National Laboratory onto an "open" computer system. He also was charged with downloading most of the data, including current nuclear weapon design codes, onto 10 portable computer tapes. Seven of the tapes cannot be found, the indictment charges. If convicted, Lee could be sentenced to life in prison.
"This case is being prosecuted because Wen Ho Lee has denied the United States its exclusive dominion and control over some of this nation's most sensitive nuclear secrets," John J. Kelly, the U.S. attorney in New Mexico, said in Albuquerque.
"Although Lee has not been charged with communicating classified information to a foreign power, the mishandling of classified information alleged in the indictment has, in the government's view, resulted in serious damage to important national interests," Kelly said.
"The indictment does not allege that Lee passed classified information to any particular foreign government, including the People's Republic of China," he added.
The FBI immediately arrested Lee, 59, at his ranch home in White Rock, N.M., a leafy suburb of Los Alamos north of Albuquerque. He was ordered jailed for the weekend after U.S. prosecutors, raising the possibility that Lee might be a flight risk, requested a delay until Monday for a hearing to determine if he should be released on bail.
'He's in Shock,' Lee's Lawyer Says
