By Jeremy Pelofsky
WASHINGTON | Wed Jul 14, 2010 4:30pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An American couple who has pleaded guilty to
spying for Cuba will be sentenced on Friday after a debriefing
prosecutors said was tarnished but did not breach their plea agreement.
Former State Department official Walter Kendall Myers, who had access to
classified information, and his wife, Gwendolyn, who worked at a bank,
pleaded guilty to charges that they worked for Cuban intelligence for
three decades.
As part of their plea agreement, Kendall Myers, 73, agreed to a sentence
of life in prison while his wife, 72, agreed to be imprisoned for up to
seven-and-a-half years as long as the government was satisfied with
their cooperation in interviews.
Some debriefings "were marred by both of the defendants' lack of
recollection or inconsistencies and contradictions," prosecutors said in
a sentencing memorandum filed last week.
"There were times when the FBI assessed that Kendall Myers, in
particular, gave inconsistent or uncooperative responses or was
intentionally withholding information," prosecutors said.
Still, the prosecutors said they would not seek to invalidate the plea
agreement.
To go to trial to seek longer a longer sentence for the wife was "not in
the national interest" because too much could be revealed during court
proceedings, they said.
A lawyer for the couple was not available for comment.
As part of the plea agreement, the two agreed to forfeit $1.7 million in
assets, including a 37-foot yacht, the Justice Department has said.
Kendall Myers is the great-grandson of the telephone inventor Alexander
Graham Bell.
The sentencing comes a week after the Obama administration deported 10
Russians who were accused of being sleeper spies for Moscow and living
illegally here.
This week, an Iranian nuclear scientist who said he was abducted by U.S.
agents and brought to the United States went home. U.S. officials have
said the scientist had provided useful information and he was in the
country voluntarily.
Kendall Myers, known as Agent 202, and his wife were accused of being
recruited in the late 1970s while he worked for the State Department. He
later rose to senior analyst on European intelligence with "top secret"
clearance and access to scores of classified documents.
Court documents said the couple used so-called dead drops, brush passes
and switching shopping carts at grocery stores to pass classified
materials to their Cuban handlers and traveled to the Communist-led country.
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