Ex-Los Alamos Pair Charged With Trying To Sell A-Bomb Data
Two former employees of a U.S. nuclear research facility were charged with attempting to sell classified data to someone they believed was a government official from Venezuela, the Justice Department said Friday.
Pedro Mascheroni, 75, and Marjorie Roxby Mascheroni, 67, both U.S. citizens, were indicted on 22 counts. If convicted of all charges, the husband and wife face a potential sentence of life in prison.
The Mascheronis worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. They offered the information, in exchange for $793,000, to an undercover FBI agent who was posing as a Venezuelan official. The Mascheronis’s plans were uncovered in March 2008, when Pedro Mascheroni discussed his intentions with the undercover agent.
According to a Justice Department statement, Mascheroni, during the talks, said he could help Venezuela develop a nuclear bomb within 10 years. In addition, Mascheroni said that Venezuela would use a secret, underground nuclear reactor to produce and enrich plutonium, and an open, above-ground reactor to produce nuclear energy, according to the statement.
Pedro Mascheroni, a scientist, was employed at the facility from 1979 to 1988 but still held a security clearance that allowed him to access certain information, including “restricted data.” Marjorie Roxby Mascheroni was employed at the lab between 1981 and 2010.
The Justice Department said the indictment “does not allege that the government of Venezuela or anyone acting on its behalf sought or was passed any classified information, nor does it charge any Venezuelan government officials or anyone acting on their behalf with wrongdoing.” The indictment also does not charge any current workers of the facility, the department said.