Imprisoned former CIA officer fights conviction over leak

RICHMOND, Va. – Once an employee of the powerful CIA, Jeffrey Sterling now sits behind bars at a federal prison in Colorado. He bides his time by reading and writing and working at the facility's recreational center.

Nearly two years after Sterling was found guilty of leaking government secrets to a reporter, the 49-year-old maintains that he is innocent. Sterling is now pinning his hopes for an early release on a federal appeals court, which will soon consider whether to reverse his convictions.

"I continue to have hope that the truth will come out," said his wife Holly Sterling, who travels to the prison from their home in Missouri once a month to visit her husband. Sterling is serving a 3 1/2-year prison sentence at an all-male prison that also houses former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and ex-Subway spokesman Jared Fogle.

A jury convicted Sterling on all counts last year after he was charged under the Espionage Act for leaking details of a CIA mission to New York Times journalist James Risen. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments in Sterling's case on Tuesday.

Prosecutors portrayed Sterling as a disgruntled former employee who exposed a plan to stall Iranian ambitions to build a nuclear weapon in an attempt to discredit the CIA. That operation involved using a CIA agent nicknamed "Merlin" to deliver flawed nuclear blueprints to Iran in the hopes that they would spend years trying to develop a product that would never work...

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/12/04/imprisoned-former-cia-officer-fights-conviction-over-leak.html

Federal prison denying imprisoned CIA whistleblower healthcare

Wife of jailed CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling demands his release with WH petition

Convicted of espionage, ex-CIA agent Jeffrey Sterling has been in prison since June. But on Wednesday in Washington, DC, his wife Holly led the call for a presidential pardon, with support from other whistleblowers and over 100,000 petition signers.

At the National Press Club, Holly Sterling read excerpts from the letter she wrote to President Barack Obama urging him to “show what it means to be a true leader.”

"You publicly committed to a transparent government led by your administration, yet it has been shrouded in mistruths and secrecy," Holly read, calling her husband’s conviction an “injustice.”

“Justice at some point is going to be served,” she said. “The truth must come out. He is innocent, and he has always been innocent.”

Jeffrey Sterling is serving a three-and-a-half-year term in a Denver prison for allegedly collaborating with New York Times journalist James Risen. More specifically, he is accused of leaking details of a bungled CIA plot against Iran’s civilian nuclear program, Operation Merlin, which Risen wrote about in his book State of War. Sterling and Risen both still deny the government’s case...

https://www.rt.com/usa/332832-sterling-cia-whistleblower-pardon/

CIA Asset 'Merlin' Testifies About Mission at CIA Leak Trial

In early 2000, the U.S. government pinned its hopes for disrupting Iran's nuclear ambitions on a Russian emigre working for the CIA who was tooling around Vienna looking to deliver bogus nuclear blueprints to the Iranians.

Unfortunately the asset, nicknamed "Merlin," was having a hard time finding the Iranians' address.

Jurors on Friday at the leak trial of ex-CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling heard Merlin testify for nearly three hours about his life as a CIA asset and his key role in the classified operation to give deliberately flawed nuclear blueprints to Iran.

Prosecutors say Sterling, 47, of O'Fallon, Missouri, who was Merlin's handler in 2000, illegally leaked details of the operation to New York Times journalist  to get back at the agency for perceived mistreatment. Sterling denies that he leaked anything to Risen. His lawyers have suggested that others, including Merlin, appear to be more likely sources for Risen's work. Merlin testified Friday that he did not leak anything to Risen.

Former national security adviser Condoleezza Rice testified on Thursday that the Merlin operation "was one of the only levers we had to try to disrupt Iran's nuclear program."

Merlin, a Russian nuclear engineer who was paid $66,000 by the CIA in 2000, also told jurors Friday about his adventures in Vienna in February of that year, where his role was to deliver a set of blueprints for a nuclear weapons part called a "firing set" to Iran's mission to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. Merlin's CIA handlers had given him very explicit instructions, but Merlin said he deviated from those instructions when he thought it appropriate.

Merlin was supposed to deliver, free of charge, an incomplete set of blueprints for a firing set to the Iranians, with instructions that they could get the rest of the blueprints if they contacted him and paid him.

The blueprints were not only incomplete, but had been doctored to insert dozens of hidden errors that were supposed to leave the Iranians chasing their own tail for years trying to build a firing set that would never work...

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/cia-leak-trial-continues-condoleezza-rice-testimony-28265187