Lawyer: Navy submariner to plead guilty in espionage case

NORFOLK, Va. --A submariner accused of stealing a Navy laptop and peddling its classified contents to an undisclosed foreign government plans to plead guilty next week to some of the six charges against him, his civilian lawyer said Tuesday.

Petty Officer 3rd Class Ariel J. Weinmann, 22, of Salem, Ore., is scheduled for court-martial Monday at Norfolk Naval Station, where he was being held in the brig. The fire control technician was stationed aboard the Connecticut-based submarine USS Albuquerque.

Weinmann has agreed to plead guilty that day to some of the charges under a pretrial agreement that also includes a maximum possible sentence, said attorney Phillip Stackhouse, a retired Marine lawyer from Jacksonville, N.C.

Stackhouse declined to say to which charges Weinmann will plead guilty or to give details about the sentence.

"I anticipate during the hearing a lot of things will be explained," Stackhouse said. He said the sentencing phase of the trial could last the week.

Weinmann is charged with espionage, desertion, failing to properly safeguard and store classified information, copying classified information, communicating classified information to a person not entitled to receive it, and stealing and destroying a government computer. He could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted of espionage.

Ted Brown, a spokesman for the Navy's Fleet Forces Command, declined to comment.

Navy officials said Weinmann gave a foreign government classified information relating to national defense before he destroyed the computer. The Navy has not disclosed for which government or governments Weinmann is charged with spying, nor what he allegedly sought in exchange.

The Navy said Weinmann visited Bahrain in March 2005 in an "attempt to communicate, deliver or transmit" classified information to "a representative, officer, agent or employee of a foreign government."

Weinmann later deserted his submarine for more than eight months to travel to Austria and Mexico to "communicate, deliver or transmit" the information to a foreign government, the Navy said.

During a preliminary hearing in July, the Navy disclosed that Weinmann was carrying $4,000 in cash, three CD-ROMs, an external computer storage device and memory cards for storing digital images when he was picked up at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on March 26.

According to testimony, Weinmann was found carrying a piece of paper with the names, Social Security numbers and birth dates of two people, as well as a notebook with handwritten contents that aroused suspicion.