LOS ANGELES -- The federal charge against three Chinese immigrants _ failing to register as foreign agents _ is a far cry from what investigators first alleged: a broad plot to steal secrets behind U.S. warship technology.
Government authorities said they may seek charges beyond the indictment issued Tuesday, but some counterintelligence analysts see parallels with other cases against alleged Chinese spies that eventually unraveled.
"There's one case after another where senior officials allege serious activities ... and then the case just falls apart and you end with minor-looking charges," Paul Moore, a consultant and former China chief analyst for the FBI, said Wednesday.
"This looks like small potatoes compared to what was originally alleged," he said.
Chi Mak, 65, of Downey, his wife and brother were indicted Tuesday on the sole charge of acting as agents of a foreign government without prior notification to the U.S. attorney general. The brothers remained in custody, but Mak's wife, Rebecca Laiwah Chiu, was released after posting $300,000 bond.
Last month, the suspects were accused in an FBI affidavit of stealing government property, aiding and abetting, transportation of stolen goods and conspiracy.
The initial accusations carried a maximum combined sentence of 25 years. In contrast, the charge filed this week could bring 10 years at most.
According to the affidavit, Mak stole computer disks from Anaheim defense contractor Power Paragon, where he was lead engineer on a sensitive research project involving propulsion systems for Navy warships.
He and Chiu, 62, allegedly copied the information to CDs and delivered them to his brother, Tai Wang Mak, 56, who was scheduled to fly to Hong Kong on Oct. 28 before heading to Guangzhou, China, to meet a contact.
The indictment contained none of those allegations.
Prosecutors held off on more counts _ at least for now _ partly because the military data in question were highly sensitive but not classified, said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office. Some information was openly discussed at conferences.
"We've charged them in the indictment with being agents of the People's Republic of China. That's a serious charge," Mrozek said.
Defense attorneys have maintained their clients' innocence or declined to comment.
Some recent Chinese intelligence cases have turned into embarrassments for federal prosecutors _ most notably that of former Los Alamos National Laboratory nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee.
Lee was accused of mishandling sensitive information and held in solitary confinement for nine months before his release in 2000, after pleading guilty to just one of the 59 counts against him. Then-President Clinton apologized for Lee's treatment.
A Los Angeles case against a Chinese-American businesswoman accused of taking documents from the briefcase of her longtime FBI handler was thrown out in January because of government misconduct.
Rodger Baker, a senior analyst at the private intelligence firm Stratfor, said investigators tend to assume the worst in national security cases.
"There's a lot of concern about not jumping the gun," Baker said. "But there's equal concern about seeming that you're not doing anything."
The information alleged to have been stolen concerned a propulsion system known as quiet electric drive, a technology that suppresses noise from submarines and could lower their chances of being picked up by enemy sonar.
