USA. v. Squillacote

• Decision Date: 03 March 2000
• Docket Number: No. 99-4088,CR-98-61,No. 99-4089,99-4088,99-4089
• Parties: (4th Cir. 2000) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. THERESA MARIE SQUILLACOTE, a/k/a Tina, a/k/a Mary Teresa Miller, a/k/a The Swan, a/k/a Margaret, a/k/a Margit, a/k/a Margret, a/k/a Margrit, a/k/a Lisa Martin, a/k/a Resi, a/k/a Anne, Defendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. KURT ALAN STAND, a/k/a Ken, a/k/a Junior, a/k/a Alan David Jackson, Defendant-Appellant. () Argued:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 542

221 F.3d 542 (4th Cir. 2000)

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. THERESA MARIE SQUILLACOTE, a/k/a Tina, a/k/a Mary Teresa Miller, a/k/a The Swan, a/k/a Margaret, a/k/a Margit, a/k/a Margret, a/k/a Margrit, a/k/a Lisa Martin, a/k/a Resi, a/k/a Anne, Defendant-Appellant.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. KURT ALAN STAND, a/k/a Ken, a/k/a Junior, a/k/a Alan David Jackson, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 99-4088 No. 99-4089 (CR-98-61)

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

Argued: March 3, 2000

Decided: August 11, 2000

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Alexandria. Claude M. Hilton, Chief District Judge. [Copyrighted Material Omitted]

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] COUNSEL ARGUED: Lawrence S. Robbins, MAYER, BROWN & PLATT, Washington, D.C., for Appellant Squillacote; Richard Alan Sauber, FRIED, FRANK, HARRIS, SHRIVER & JACOBSON, Washington, D.C., for Appellant Stand. Randy I. Bellows, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Alexandria, Virginia; Michael Charles Liebman, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Lee H. Rubin, Edward S. Lee, MAYER, BROWN & PLATT, Washington, D.C., for Appellant Squillacote Douglas W. Baruch, David B. Wiseman, FRIED, FRANK, HARRIS, SHRIVER & JACOBSON, Washington, D.C., for Appellant Stand. Helen F. Fahey, United States Attorney, Vincent L. Gambale, Assistant United States Attorney, Robert A. Spencer, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee.

Before LUTTIG and TRAXLER, Circuit Judges, and Jackson L. KISER, Senior United States District Judge For the Western District of Virginia, sitting by designation.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Traxler wrote the opinion, in which Judge Luttig and Senior Judge Kiser joined.

OPINION

TRAXLER, Circuit Judge:

Appellants Theresa Squillacote and her husband Kurt Stand appeal from their convictions on various espionage-related charges. We affirm.

I.

Viewed in the light most favorable to the government, the evidence presented at trial established the following. Kurt Stand's parents fled to the United States from Germany during Hitler's reign. After the war, his family maintained contact with friends in the German Democratic Republic ("East Germany"). When Stand was approximately 18, his father introduced him to Lothar Ziemer, an officer with the Ministerium fur Staatssicherheit ("MfS"), East Germany's intelligence agency. The "HVA" was the foreign intelligence arm of the MfS, and Ziemer was in charge of Section 3 of the HVA's Department XI. The "primary mission" of Department XI was the "operational reconnaissance of North America." J.A. 726. Its purpose was to "acquire data of significance to the German Democratic Republic . . . that could not be acquired by legal means." J.A. 726. In the early 1970s, Stand began working for Ziemer as an HVA agent.

Stand's HVA activities consisted primarily of recruiting other agents. In 1976, Stand invited James Michael Clark, a college friend, to travel with him to Germany. Stand introduced Clark to an HVA operative, who introduced him to Ziemer. Ziemer invited Clark to join his organization, which he described as performing intelligence work on behalf of East Germany and other socialist countries, as well as "liberation movements" in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. J.A. 903. Clark agreed. Sometime between 1979 and 1981, Stand brought his wife Theresa Squillacote into the fold, and she too became what Ziemer described as an "informal collaborator[ ]." J.A. 703. At some point, Squillacote's relationship with Ziemer became more than professional, and they had an affair that lasted until 1996.

The HVA devoted substantial resources to the training of Stand, Squillacote, and Clark. They traveled to many countries, including East Germany and Mexico, to meet with their "handlers." They received training on detecting and avoiding surveillance, receiving and decoding messages sent by shortwave radio from Cuba, mailing and receiving packages through the use of "accommodation" addresses, using codewords and phrases, using a miniature camera to photograph documents, and removing classified markings from documents. HVA records indicate that the three conspirators were together paid more than $40,000 between 1985 and 1989, primarily as reimbursement for travel expenses.

As part of his "operational plan" devised with Ziemer, J.A. 925, Clark moved to Washington, D.C., and obtained a master's degree in Russian. For a time Clark worked for a private company in a position that required him to obtain a security clearance. He later obtained a position with the United States Army, in its environmental law division, which also required a security clearance. Clark had friends who worked for the State Department, and through them he obtained numerous classified documents that he turned over to the HVA.

Squillacote and Stand also moved to Washington, D.C., and she went to law school at the HVA's suggestion. Squillacote first followed in her father's footsteps by becoming an attorney for the National Labor Relations Board. When she realized that she had taken a career path that was not "in the best direction," J.A. 2213, she began trying to "move [her] professional work more in line with the commitments that [she] had made." J.A. 1682. To that end, Squillacote used her father's connections to obtain an unprecedented temporary detail from the NLRB to the House Armed Services Committee. In 1991, Squillacote obtained a permanent job as an attorney in the Department of Defense, eventually becoming the Director of Legislative Affairs in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Acquisition Reform), a position that required a security clearance and provided access to valuable information. During her tenure with the federal government, Squillacote applied for numerous government jobs, including positions with the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, United States Army, Navy, and Air Force, and the Departments of State, Commerce, Energy, and Treasury. Apparently it was not until she began working for the Department of Defense that Squillacote gained access to the kind of information sought by her handlers.¹ However, by that time, East Germany had collapsed.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Ziemer began working with the KGB, the Soviet Union's intelligence agency. Ziemer maintained his relationships with Stand, Squillacote, and Clark during this time, and they, too, became involved with the KGB. Stand, Squillacote, and Clark each traveled overseas to meet with Ziemer during the period after the collapse of East Germany. Ziemer instructed the conspirators to purchase Casio digital diaries with interchangeable memory cards. The conspirators, Ziemer, and their KGB contacts communicated with each other by exchanging memory cards.

In April 1992, Ziemer and another former HVA official were arrested and ultimately convicted for their post-unification intelligence activities with the KGB. Stand, Squillacote, and Clark became understandably concerned about their personal safety after Ziemer's arrest. They knew that "western services" were looking for two men and one woman operating out of Washington, D.C., and that the western services were aware of code names they had used. J.A. 2240. However, they believed that Ziemer and other former HVA officials would not compromise their identities. When Ziemer was released from prison in September 1992, Stand, Squillacote, and Clark reestablished a system of communication with him, one purpose of which was to keep everyone informed about any threats to their safety.

From the beginning of their involvement with the HVA, Stand, Squillacote, and Clark operated independently of each other and generally were unaware of the others' activities. After Ziemer's arrest in 1992, however, the three began talking in detail about their activities and precautions needed to maintain their security. They began discussing the possibility of future intelligence work, perhaps for Vietnam or Cuba. Squillacote also talked to Clark about her interest in South Africa's Communist Party.

In 1994, Squillacote, as part of her search for"another connection," J.A. 2290, went to Amsterdam to speak to David Truong, whom she had met in college. Truong, who had been convicted of espionage on behalf of North Vietnam, was intrigued, but took no further action.

In 1995, Squillacote went to great lengths to obtain a post office box under the name of "Lisa Martin." In June 1995 Squillacote, as Lisa Martin, sent a letter to Ronnie Kasrils, the Deputy Defense Minister of South Africa. Kasrils was a Communist party official, and had received training in East Germany, the Soviet Union, and Cuba. The letter, which took Squillacote months to write, was primarily devoted to Squillacote's explanation for the collapse of socialism that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall, and her views on how the communist movement should proceed in the future. The letter was an attempt by Squillacote to make a connection with Kasrils, whom Squillacote hoped would "read between the lines." J.A. 1912. Stand and Clark were aware of the letter, but Clark apparently doubted its effectiveness.

In February 1996, Squillacote received a Christmas card from Kasrils addressed to L. Martin. In the card, Kasrils thanked "Lisa" for "the best letter" he had received in 1995. J.A. 1675. Stand and Squillacote were thrilled they received the note, and they began to think that perhaps a connection could be made. In September 1996, Squillacote found another letter from Kasrils in her Lisa Martin post office box. The letter stated that "you may have the interest and vision to assist in our struggle," and invited Squillacote to a meeting in New York...