F.B.L agent charged

Press, 5 October 1984, Page 6

F.B.L agent charged

NZPA-AP Los Angeles

The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested one of its own agents on espionage charges yesterday, accusing him of selling secrets to a Soviet agent and her estranged husband. The special agent, Richard Miller, aged 47, a 20year F. 8.1. veteran said to have been in financial trouble, was the first bureau agent to be charged with espionage, and the case marked the first known foreign infiltration of the agency. Miller, based in Los Angeles, was arrested at his home and appeared before a Federal Magistrate, Mr Roger McKee, in San Diego. He was ordered back to court today to face a charge of conspiracy to gather defence information to aid a

foreign Government. The maximum penalty upon conviction would be life in prison. No bail was allowed because “flight is a real strong risk,” said an Assistant United States Attorney, Ray Edwards. >

A court document says that there was a plan for Miller to go to Vienna or Warsaw.

No plea was entered. Also arrested and charged yesterday were Svetlana Ogorodnikova, aged 34, of Los Angeles, an alleged major in the K.G.8., the Soviet secret police and intelligence agency, and her husband, Nikolay Ogorodnikov, also known as Nikolay Wolfson, aged 51. The F. 8.1. said they were born in the Soviet Union and had emigrated to the United States in 1973.