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)

Chi Mak's wife, brother and other relatives also have been indicted and go on trial together on June 5. Staples said the government may use the verdict to try to negotiate plea bargains with Mak's indicted family members, who pleaded not guilty.

Defense attorneys Marilyn Bednarski and Ronald Kaye said they would appeal the verdict, insisting the government had manipulated the facts.

In many instances, the government was allowed to present classified information to U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney in his chambers, and the defense team was not allowed to view the government's application for a warrant to bug Mak's house and car, Kaye said.

"It is so absurd to believe that he has been passing technology for 20 years when they had not one witness and not one piece of paper to corroborate this," Kaye said.

The trial featured testimony from FBI agents, U.S. Navy officials, encryption and espionage experts and the engineer himself.

Key to the trial was the government's allegation that Mak confessed to the conspiracy _ and even named his so-called "handler" and specific restricted documents _ during an untaped jailhouse interview two days after his arrest.

Mak testified he never confessed during that interview, but admitted on cross-examination that he lied repeatedly in an earlier taped interview about the number of times he had visited China and when he told authorities he didn't have friends or relatives there. He said he felt intimidated during the interrogation.

"This is why I lied," he said. "They were pushing me that night."

Mak's attorneys focused on a paper he had written on the propulsion system that was found in his brother's luggage at Los Angeles International Airport.

Mak said he believed he was doing nothing wrong by giving the paper to his brother to take out of the country because he had written it for Power Paragon and had presented it at an engineering conference in 2004.

The government, however, alleged the documents were export-controlled and couldn't fall into foreigners' hands.