1st of 5 accused in Chinese spy case begins trial

Chi Mak, 67, has been held without bail since his arrest on Oct. 28, 2005. His defense team denied that he did anything wrong and accused the government of building its case against him by overstating the evidence and portraying him as a spy when no classified information was given to China.

Defense attorney Marilyn E. Bednarski said the FBI made faulty translations of documents and conversations in Chinese "to fit a spy-type profile" of Mak.

Each side laid out its case to an eight-woman, four-man jury in lengthy opening statements in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana in the morning before the government began calling witnesses in the afternoon.

Asst. U.S. Atty. Gregory W. Staples portrayed Mak, who lived in Downey, as a villain who sold out his adopted country. Bednarski said Mak was a loyal American and a victim of "misperception and prejudice."

Mak is an internationally known electrical engineer who worked at Power Paragon, an Anaheim defense contractor that was developing a quiet electric-drive propulsion system for U.S. Navy submarines. He and four others have been accused of conspiring to transfer sensitive technical military information to the People's Republic of China.

None of the information was classified, and much of it can be found on the Internet, but prosecutors said the five failed to get permission from the State Department and Power Paragon to export the documents.

Mak, the first defendant to go to trial, has been charged with 15 counts of conspiring to violate export laws, exporting or attempting to export defense information to China, acting as an agent of the Chinese government and lying to the FBI.

Also charged are his wife, Rebecca Laiwah Chiu; his brother, Tai Mak, and his wife, Fuk Heung Li, and their son, Yui "Billy" Mak. All are awaiting trial.

Perhaps the most damaging evidence that Staples laid out was Mak's alleged confession to two Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents two days after his arrest. In the interview in jail, Mak allegedly admitted sending technical information about military technologies to China since 1983, including details about super-secret radar used on Navy destroyers that the Chinese navy now uses. Mak told the agents he was still loyal to China, Staples said. The prosecutor suggested that China developed the technology with help from Mak's information.