Naturalized U.S. citizen pleads guilty to acting as foreign agent

By: North County Times wire services - | Wednesday, June 6, 2007 8:53 PM PDT ∞

SANTA ANA - In what a prosecutor Wednesday called a "historic" plea, a Downey woman who is a naturalized U.S. citizen from China pleaded guilty to acting as a foreign agent without registering with the United States government.

Rebecca Chiu, 63, was set to go to trial Wednesday. But under an agreement reached late last night, she will face a three-year prison term and voluntarily leave the country when she is released.

Her 66-year-old husband, Anaheim defense contractor engineer Chi Mak, was recently convicted of conspiring to send sensitive information on U.S. submarine systems to China.

Mak was also convicted of acting as an unregistered agent of China, conspiracy to violate export control laws, attempting to violate export control laws and lying to the FBI. He faces up to 45 years in prison.

A jury selected yesterday to hear the evidence against Chiu was dismissed this morning.

After the panel left the courtroom, U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney said the government "couldn't have been more successful" in its prosecution of the case, but added, "I don't think there are any real winners here."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Staples told Carney that the case represents a first.

"I don't know where an agent of a foreign government has admitted it," he said. "We saw something of a minor, but something of an historic, nature."

Staples later told reporters that the admission to the charge is "the first I'm aware of."

Laura Eimiller of the FBI said a quick check shows it is the first guilty plea to that charge relating to China. But whether it is the first involving any other country would take more research. There have been convictions at trial on the charge -- including that of Chi Mak, she said.

Defense attorney Stanley Greenberg said his client's plea "reflects a negotiated settlement to eliminate the risk of a long prison sentence."

"When the government holds a life sentence over your head, people plead guilty to anything rather than risk a longer sentence," Greenberg said.

Chiu had also been charged with conspiring to violate export control laws and lying to the FBI. But Greenberg said she would have faced a harsher prison term if she pleaded guilty to those, and that getting on with her life is now the main goal.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Missakian said prosecutors insisted that Chiu plead guilty to the foreign agent charge, instead of the conspiracy charge, because "we were ready to go to trial and believe she would have been convicted."

Missakian said Chiu admitted the material was headed for the man prosecutors had called her husband's "handler" in China, Pu Pei Liang.

Greenberg said Chiu knew the information was "going to this guy, Pu, and when the government tells her he was in the Chinese government, she accepts that."

Chi Mak and his wife were arrested at their Downey home shortly after his brother, Tai Mak, and sister-in-law, Fuk Li, were taken into custody on Oct. 28, 2005, at Los Angeles International Airport, as they prepared to board a plane to Hong Kong.

Prosecutors allege that Tai Mak had encrypted disks so that the information within would not be found. Tai Mak and Fuk Li's son, UCLA student Billy Yui Mak, was arrested on June 7, 2006, and accused of encrypting the disks.

Chi Mak, during his trial, denied attempting to send information out of the country in violation of U.S. laws.

He told agents who later questioned him that he had given documents relating to research for the U.S. Navy to his brother, so that Tai Mak could select engineering books for him while in Hong Kong, according to the indictment.

But prosecutors said the information recovered from the disks, relating to the Quiet Electric Drive power system designed to make submarines quieter, as well as a solid state power switch for ships, is extremely sensitive and labeled NOFORN, or barred from the view of foreign nationals.

Chi Mak worked on the naval technology at his job at Power Paragon Inc. in Anaheim.

He argued the information was in the public domain and that he had given presentations on the documents seized that were internationally attended.

Tai Mak, 57, of Alhambra, pleaded guilty on Monday to conspiring to violate export control laws and faces up to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced on Oct. 1.

Fuk Li, 49, of Alhambra, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the violation of export control laws. Under terms of a "binding" plea agreement, she is expected to get three years probation, officials said.

Billy Mak, 26, pleaded guilty last Friday to aiding and abetting the violation of export control laws, by encrypting the information on the discs, and is expected to be sentenced to time already served.

Tai Mak, Fuk Li and Billy Mak are not U.S. citizens and are expected to face deportation when they complete their sentences, Missakian said.

According to Staples, the State Department in 1989 barred the export of any military technology to China. He said "barely nothing" on the discs seized from Tai Mak and Fuk Li is allowed to be sent to China.

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