A former US defence department official was
Friday sentenced to a 57-month jail term for espionage.
Gregg William Bergersen, 51, was sentenced to an additional three years
of supervised release "for conspiracy to disclose national defence
information to persons not entitled to receive it," a justice department
statement said.
Between March 2007 and February 2008, Bergersen, then a weapons systems policy
analyst at the Defence Security Cooperation Agency, passed on classified information
about US military sales to Taiwan to New Orleans businessman and US citizen Tai
Shen Kuo.
In return, he received gifts, cash payments and additional money to gamble in
Las Vegas, the statement said.
Bergersen didn't know that Kuo sent the information to a Chinese government
official. He was arrested on February 11, and pleaded guilty in March.
Patrick Rowan, acting assistant attorney general for national security, said
Bergersen "betrayed his oath to serve and protect our nation when he used
his government position to access and pass national defence information to a
person he knew was not entitled to receive it. Today, he is paying the price
for his actions."
In May, Kuo pleaded guilty to "conspiracy to deliver
national defence information to a foreign government." He is scheduled to
be sentenced in August and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, dpa reported.
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