Engineer Guilty in Military Secrets Case

Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Missakian speaks to reporters after a jury convicted Chi Mak, a Chinese-born engineer, of conspiring to export U.S. defense technologies to China and being an unregistered foreign agent in the Federal Courthouse in Santa Ana, Calif., Thursday, May 10, 2007. Mak worked on submarine technology for an Orange County defense contractor. (AP Photo/Mark Avery) (Mark Avery - AP)

SANTA ANA, Calif. -- After a six-week trial, a federal jury convicted a Chinese-born engineer of conspiring to export U.S. defense technology to China, including data on an electronic propulsion system that could make submarines virtually undetectable.

Friends and colleagues knew Chi Mak as an unassuming, brilliant man who worked 12-hour days as an engineer for a defense contractor, rarely went out and scrimped to pay off his 700-square-foot suburban home.

Federal prosecutors portrayed Mak as a polished agent for the Chinese who used his low-key lifestyle and good reputation as a cover for his real work _ conspiring to pass U.S. secrets for more than two decades.

The jury sided with the government, also finding Mak guilty of acting as an unregistered foreign agent, attempting to violate export control laws and making false statements to the FBI.

Prosecutors had dropped a charge of the actual export of defense articles.

Mak stared straight ahead and seemed to hold back tears as the verdict was read. One of his attorneys gently rubbed his back.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Staples said Mak faces up to 45 years in prison when he is sentenced Sept. 10.

"We were confident from the start and we're very happy with the verdict," Staples said.

The government accused Mak, a naturalized U.S. citizen, of taking thousands of pages of documents from his defense contractor employer, Power Paragon of Anaheim, and giving them to his brother, who passed them along to Chinese authorities over a number of years.

Mak was arrested in 2005 in Los Angeles after FBI agents stopped his brother and sister-in-law as they boarded a flight to Hong Kong.

Investigators said they found three encrypted CDs in their luggage that contained documents on a submarine propulsion system, a solid-state power switch for ships and a Power Point presentation on the future of power electronics.

Mak acknowledged during the trial that he copied classified documents from his employer and kept copies in his office. He maintained he didn't realize that making the copies was illegal.