Two U.S. spies for Cuba ask court to jail them near each other
By Lesley Clark | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — A Washington D.C. couple who spent 30 years spying for Cuba
are asking a federal judge to recommend that they be incarcerated near
each other — but not in Florida, where they say the federal prisons
"will likely have populations of Cuban-Americans who might react
strongly to their offense.''
Walter and Gwendolyn Myers pleaded guilty in November to sending secrets
to the United States' longtime antagonist. They are scheduled to be
sentenced Friday before U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton.
Walter Myers — a former State Department employee with top-secret
clearance — agreed to a life sentence without parole and to cooperate
with the federal government in a deal that offered his wife a much
lighter sentence than the 20 years she might have faced at trial.
In court documents filed late Friday, the couple's defense attorneys are
asking Walton to sentence Gwendolyn Myers to the low end of the plea
deal -- six years, rather than seven and a half years.
"The eighteen-month difference between 72 and 90 months could
potentially represent a significant percentage of her remaining life
span,'' her lawyers wrote, noting that Gwendolyn Myers, whom they
portray as a doting grandmother, will be 72 on Friday and has suffered
cardiac complications, including a heart attack since her incarceration
last June.
In arguing for a lighter sentence, her attorneys note that although
Gwendolyn Myers "shared her husband's political beliefs, she had no
capacity to commit the offense on her own.''
They include letters of support from friends, former employees and
family members who plead for leniency.
"Mrs. Myers has positively impacted each community in which she has
lived, and herrelease from prison would allow her to continue
contributing to those around her, starting with, but by no means limited
to, her extended family,'' her attorneys wrote.
They argued that she and Kendall Myers "within days of their arrest''
offered to cooperate with the government and have undergone nearly 100
debriefings with the FBI and other intelligence agencies. They noted
that Gwendolyn Myers has worked as a teacher's assistant in the jail's
life-skills class, helping teach other inmates.
Government prosecutors, however, are asking for the maximum sentence,
with U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen writing that the couple "committed one
of the worst crimes a citizen can perpetrate against his or her own
country — espionage on behalf of a long-standing foreign adversary.''
In addition, he noted that "without Gwendolyn Myers's deference to, if
not active support and encouragement of, seemingly everything her
husband did, Kendall Myers's desire to become a Cuban spy 30 years ago
may well have been short-lived.''
At one point, he calls her "far more than just a knowing wife of a
spy,'' noting that they both were recruited by Cuban intelligence and
that she, like her husband, had a code name supplied by the Cubans. "He
was Agent 202. She was Agent 123,'' Machen wrote. "She not only
supported and encouraged her husband's theft of U.S. secrets from the
Department of State, but she also actively engaged in their espionage.''
Machen argued that her "criminal culpability'' was greater than other
past spouses of spies, including Rosario Ames, the wife of Russian spy
Aldrich Ames, and Anne Case Pollard, the wife of Israeli spy Jonathan
Pollard.
"Unlike Gwendolyn Myers, neither Rosario Ames nor Anne Pollard decrypted
coded messages from, assisted in the transmission of classified
information to, nor had repeated, substantive operational meets with,
the foreign intelligence service at issue,'' he said.
Machen also suggested that Walter Myers was not always forthcoming
during the briefings, which remain classified. He wrote that the couple
was "generally outwardly cooperative'' during the briefings and never
refused to attend a session.
But he said, "there were times when the FBI assessed that Kendall Myers,
in particular, gave inconsistent or uncooperative responses or was
intentionally withholding information.''
The pair is asking that Walton recommend to the Bureau of Prisons that
they be incarcerated in facilities near each other, to allow their
siblings, their six children, and seven grandchildren to visit them.
They suggest placing Gwendolyn Myers in the Satellite Camp in Lexington,
Ky., and Walter Kendall Myers in an adjacent Administrative Facility.
Or alternatively, that Walter Myers be placed at the U. S. penitentiary
formale inmates in Atwater, Calif., and Gwendolyn Myers at the Federal
Correctional Institution for women in Dublin, California.
"Such proximity also means something to Dr. and Mrs. Myers personally:
both will derivesome comfort from knowing the other is not physically
far away. In light of the depth of the emotional bonds of their marriage
— a relationship numerous letter writers comment upon asexceptionally
loving and close.''
They also are asking that Walton recommend that the prison allow him to
continue to teach fellow inmates and "continue his scholarly writing,''
noting that he is working on a book on.
"At all turns, they have attempted to benefit in some small way their
fellow inmates and to salvage some larger good from their situation.
Their behavior has reflected theirdetermination, as they serve out their
punishments, to use their talents in the service of others. Their
conduct since their arrest is entirely consistent with the idealism that
brought them before this court."
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/10/97303/two-us-spies-for-cuba-ask-court.html
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