U.S.A.-VIRGINIA: SAILOR WILL PLEAD GUILTY TO SOME CHARGES

US sailor for plea bargain
By eunice del rosario

AN American sailor accused of stealing a US Navy laptop and peddling its classified contents to an undisclosed foreign government during meetings in Bahrain, Mexico and Austria plans to plead guilty to some of the six charges against him next week.

Petty Officer 3rd Class Ariel Weinmann is scheduled for court-martial on Monday at the Norfolk Naval Station, Virginia, US.

But his attorney, Phillip Stackhouse, declined to reveal which charges his client would plead to under the pre-trial agreement.

Mr 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.

Mr Stackhouse also declined to release details about the maximum sentence.

But an espionage conviction could mean that Mr Weinmann, a fire control technician previously assigned to the submarine USS Albuquerque, could be sentenced to life in prison.

The navy had said the sailor gave a foreign government classified information relating to US national defence before he destroyed the computer.

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