Former CIA officer arrested may have endangered US covert operatives

Former CIA employee Jerry Chun Sing Lee

JERRY CHUN SING LEE, aka Zhen Cheng Li, 53, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer, was arrested Jan. 15 on charges of unlawful retention of national defense information.

Some have linked him to what has been considered one of the U.S. government’s most serious intelligence failures of recent years, after several informants in China were killed or imprisoned.

Lee was arrested after arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York. Lee is a naturalized U.S. citizen, currently residing in Hong Kong, China. According to court documents, Lee began working for the CIA as a case officer in 1994, maintained a Top Secret clearance and signed numerous non-disclosure agreements during his tenure at CIA.

According to court documents, in August 2012, Lee and his family left Hong Kong to return to the United States to live in northern Virginia. While traveling back to the United States, Lee and his family had hotel stays in Hawaii and Virginia. During each of the hotel stays, FBI agents conducted court-authorized searches of Lee’s room and luggage, and found that Lee was in unauthorized possession of materials relating to the national defense. 

Agents found two small books containing handwritten notes that contained classified information, including but not limited to, true names and phone numbers of assets and covert CIA employees, operational notes from asset meetings, operational meeting locations and locations of covert facilities.

Lee left the CIA in 2007 after 13 years with the agency. At that point, he should have surrendered the notebooks with that vital information.

Lee made his initial appearance last Monday in the Eastern District of New York. He is charged with unlawful retention of national defense information and faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, if convicted. 

Relatives who live in California said his wife, who is in Hong Kong, and his daughter, who lives in Virginia, were trying to hire a lawyer. The family members declined further comment.

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