Jeffrey Alexander Sterling
Encyclopedia
Jeffrey Alexander Sterling is a former CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...

 employee, who was indicted and subsequently arrested under the Espionage Act
Espionage Act of 1917
The Espionage Act of 1917 is a United States federal law passed on June 15, 1917, shortly after the U.S. entry into World War I. It has been amended numerous times over the years. It was originally found in Title 50 of the U.S. Code but is now found under Title 18, Crime...

 for allegedly revealing details about Operation Merlin
Operation Merlin
Operation Merlin is an alleged United States covert operation under the Clinton Administration to provide Iran with a flawed design for building a nuclear weapon in order to delay the alleged Iranian nuclear weapons program.-History:...

 to journalist James Risen
James Risen
James Risen is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist for The New York Times who previously worked for the Los Angeles Times. He has written or co-written many articles concerning U.S...

.

Education

Sterling earned a political science degree at Millikin University
Millikin University
Millikin University is an American co-educational, comprehensive, private, four-year university with traditional undergraduate programs in arts and sciences, business, fine arts, and professional studies, as well as non-traditional, adult degree-completion programs and graduate programs in...

 in Decatur, Il, in 1989. In 1992, he graduated from the School of Law at Washington University in St. Louis
Washington University in St. Louis
Washington University in St. Louis is a private research university located in suburban St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1853, and named for George Washington, the university has students and faculty from all fifty U.S. states and more than 110 nations...

.

CIA employment

Jeffrey Alexander Sterling joined the CIA on 14 May 1993, and in 1995 became Operations Officer in the Iran Task force of CIA's Near East and South Asia division. He held a Top Secret security clearance and had access to Sensitive Compartmented Information, including classified cables, CIA informants and operations. After training in Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

 in 1997 he was sent first to Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....

, Germany, and two years later to New York City to recruit Iranian nationals as agents for the CIA, as part of a secret intelligence operation related to the weapons capabilities of Iran. In April 2000, Sterling filed a complaint about racial discrimination practices by CIA management with CIA's Equal Employment Office. The CIA subsequently revoked Sterling's authorization to receive or possess classified documents concerning the secret operation, and placed him on administrative leave in March 2001. After the failure of two settlement attempts, his contract with the CIA was terminated on 31. January 2002.

Equal Employment law suit

Sterling's law suit accusing CIA officials of racial discrimination was dismissed by the judge invoking the State secrets privilege
State Secrets Privilege
The state secrets privilege is an evidentiary rule created by United States legal precedent. Application of the privilege results in exclusion of evidence from a legal case based solely on affidavits submitted by the government stating that court proceedings might disclose sensitive information...

, as the litigation would have required the disclosure of classified information. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal, ruling in 2005 that “there is no way for Sterling to prove employment discrimination without exposing at least some classified details of the covert employment that gives context to his claim.”

Indictment and arrest under the Espionage Act

Between 2002 and 2004 the U.S. federal government intercepted several interstate emails to and from Sterling, which were "(...) routed through a server located in the Eastern District of Virginia (...)". The authorities also traced telephone calls between Sterling and - according to a senior government official - the journalist and book author James Risen. In the intercepted communications Sterling allegedly revealed national defense information to an unauthorized person.

On 22 Dec 2010, U.S. attorney Neil H. MacBride filed an indictment against Jeffrey Alexander Sterling on the Unlawful Retention and Unauthorized Disclosure of National Defense Information, Mail Fraud, Unauthorized Conveyance of Government Property, and Obstruction of Justice. Sterling was arrested on 6 January 2011. Sterling became the fifth individual in the history of the United States who has been charged under the Espionage Act
Espionage Act of 1917
The Espionage Act of 1917 is a United States federal law passed on June 15, 1917, shortly after the U.S. entry into World War I. It has been amended numerous times over the years. It was originally found in Title 50 of the U.S. Code but is now found under Title 18, Crime...

 with mishandling national defense information.

In a hearing at the U.S. District Court on 14 Jan 2011, Sterling's defense attorney Edward MacMahon entered a not guilty plea. MacMahon reported to the court that he was still waiting for clearance to discuss the case in detail with his client.

Awards

Sterling earned a national 2010 Anti-Fraud Award from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association
Blue Cross Blue Shield Association
The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association is a federation of 39 separate health insurance organizations and companies in the United States. Combined, they directly or indirectly provide health insurance to over 100 million Americans. The history of Blue Cross dates back to 1929, while the history of...

 for helping break up a Medicare
Medicare (United States)
Medicare is a social insurance program administered by the United States government, providing health insurance coverage to people who are aged 65 and over; to those who are under 65 and are permanently physically disabled or who have a congenital physical disability; or to those who meet other...

 fraud ring, leading to estimated recoveries and savings of US$ 32 million.

See also

  • Nuclear program of Iran
    Nuclear program of Iran
    The nuclear program of Iran was launched in the 1950s with the help of the United States as part of the Atoms for Peace program. The support, encouragement and participation of the United States and Western European governments in Iran's nuclear program continued until the 1979 Iranian Revolution...

  • Thomas Andrews Drake
    Thomas Andrews Drake
    Thomas Andrews Drake is a former senior official of the U.S. National Security Agency , decorated United States Air Force and United States Navy veteran, computer software expert, linguist, management and leadership specialist, and whistleblower. In 2010 the government alleged that he 'mishandled'...

     (NSA whistleblower prosecuted under Espionage Act, 2010)
  • Stephen Jin-Woo Kim
    Stephen Jin-Woo Kim
    Stephen Jin-Woo Kim is a Senior Analyst at the Office of National Security at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory with a distinguished career in academia and government service. He lives in McLean, Virginia...

     (State Department contractor prosecuted under Espionage Act, 2010)
  • Chilling Effect
    Chilling effect
    In a legal context, a chilling effect is the term used to describe the inhibition or discouragement of the legitimate exercise of a constitutional right by the threat of legal sanction. The right that is most often described as being supressed by a chilling effect is the right to free speech...

  • Dreyfus affair
    Dreyfus Affair
    The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal that divided France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent...


External links

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