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On Oct. 23, at the end of a two-week espionage trial notable for its lack of evidence that the defendants ever passed classified information to a foreign power, a northern Virginia jury found Kurt Stand and Theresa Squillacote guilty on all counts. Stand and Squillacote will be sentenced January 8 and face 15 years to life in federal prison. The convictions will be appealed.

Stand and Squillacote were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage for East Germany, the Soviet Union, Russia and South Africa, and attempted espionage for South Africa—the latter count stemming from a successful FBI sting operation. Squillacote was also convicted of removing classified documents from the Pentagon where she worked when the sting began.

The trial presented an inside view of how the extraordinary powers granted to the FBI by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), combined with insurmountably broad conspiracy charges and entrapment, can create a criminal conviction. Stand’s attorney pointed out that before the 1996 FBI sting, 200 FBI agents had uncovered nothing of a criminal nature in Stand and Squillacote’s behavior despite tapping their phones, bugging their house, downloading their computer, and secretly searching their home—all authorized by a secret FISA court.

The FBI knew that Stand and Squillacote had never passed classified information to the East German intelligence officer with whom they had personal and political relationships. (The undercover agent admitted as much on the witness stand.) But they also knew that Squillacote’s psychological vulnerabilities made her a promising target for a false flag or sting operation.

A letter retrieved from her computer that Squillacote had written to a South African official admiring his recent book inspired the FBI to set its trap by responding with a note purporting to be from the book’s author and inviting her to meet his colleague in New York.

FBI agent Douglas Gregory, who posed as the South African official, described how the FBI team monitoring Stand and Squillacote’s phone conversations with her psychiatrist, among others, learned that she was taking antidepressants and undergoing psychiatric treatment. With this information, the FBI developed a personality profile of Squillacote and tailored the sting accordingly.

On the stand Agent Gregory stated, after some hesitation, that apartheid was “occasionally” brutal to blacks; that he believed Nelson Mandela to be a communist; and that South Africa “is a member of the communist bloc.” His testimony demonstrated the Cold War mentality that permeated the case.

An aggressive defense team showed that the information in the classified documents Squillacote gave to the FBI had already been included in public government budget testimony and had been leaked numerous times to defense industry trade publications. The documents included drafts of defense planning guidance that justified budget requests and a 2-year-old conventional arms trade report. Material in the public domain cannot be the basis for an espionage conviction.
The defense also presented extensive and compelling psychiatric testimony from Squillacote’s own doctor and from outside experts. They agreed she suffered from borderline personality disorder that affected her judgment, likely due to the trauma of lengthy repeated painful hospitalizations as a child to correct birth defects. The FBI’s profile, the experts said, showed that the government was well aware of her difficulties, including her continuing anxiety about her sister’s suicide. The profile even predicted that Squillacote might commit suicide if arrested. The witnesses clearly deplored the medical ethics of devising a profile in order to entrap patient undergoing psychiatric care.

The most revealing testimony came from Stand and Squillacote’s long-time friend Jim Clark, who was arrested with them and pled guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage in June. Clark described his relationships with East German intelligence officers, saying he provided them with his own analysis of world politics and passed about a dozen classified State Department documents in the early 1980s.

Clark said that he only discussed his activities with Stand and Squillacote after East Germany ceased to exist, and that Squillacote told him then that she and Stand had never given classified information to anyone. Although Clark had known Stand and Squillacote for many years, he had lost touch with them in the 1980s and was emphatic that they never worked together to give information to East Germany or any other foreign power.

German government witnesses imported by the prosecution from Berlin for the trial also confirmed that neither Stand nor Squillacote ever gave East Germany classified information, despite the fact that they kept their German connection secret.

In short, the government argued that for 25 years the defendants had conspired to spy, even though they never had actually done so. The prosecution used evidence of the couple’s politics and their relationship with East Germany to make its case. That evidence, coupled with the sting and instructions from the judge favoring the prosecution, led the jury to convict after two days of deliberation.

For information, contact the Fund for the Fourth Amendment, P.O. Box 5685, Wash., DC 20016 or call (202) 829-6167.

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