Boeing espionage trial winds down

Chung is the first person to go to trial under the Economic Espionage Act, which was
passed by Congress about a decade ago and bans the passing of trade secrets to
benefit a foreign government.

Wang told Carney that FBI agents who searched the Orange home of the 73- year-old
former aerospace worker found material on "technology so sensitive" that it "had to
be locked up at night" at Boeing's Huntington Beach plant, and that employees knew they were forbidden from taking work home without authorization.

The documents, along with journal entries and letters from Chinese officials that Wang called "handlers," make it clear "that the defendant has done everything he can ... to contribute his technological expertise toward modernizing what he called the motherland of the People's Republic of China," Wang said.

"We know he didn't blindly collect random information," the prosecutor said. "He
received specific tasking lists. He always worked with someone in the PRC. He knew
and was eager to accomplish the object of the conspiracy."

Chung retired in 2002 but returned to Boeing in 2004 as a Space Shuttle contractor after the Challenger disaster. He remained on the job until his arrest in September 2006.

In gathering classified documents, "the defendant didn't stop at the Space Shuttle,"
Wang alleged. Other "equally sensitive" paperwork included documents on the Delta 4
rocket, according to the prosecution.

Documents relating to the Delta 4 are essentially "do-it-yourself kits" that are trade secrets, she said.

"It's a highly complex technology" that cost Boeing nearly $50 million, took 30 engineers and five years to develop and "is still in use today," she said.

Prosecutors said Chung, who was born in China in 1936, moved to Taiwan in 1948 and
then to the United States in 1962, worked as a stress analyst on the Space Shuttle
since his hiring in 1973.

Chung first met Gu Weihao, an engineer for the Ministry of Aviation in China, in 1980
in Los Angeles, according to court documents.

He met Weihao again in 1985 at a Bejing hotel, Wang said. During that trip, Chung
received lists of requests for answers to 45 highly technical questions and was also
told that he would be compensated "for collection and purchasing the information,"
Wang said.

She told the judge that Chung kept in contact with Chinese officials and made other
trips between 2001-03.

When questioned after his arrest in 2006, Chung twice told agents that he had
permission to take the documents home, Wang said.

Bienert said Chung never crossed the line into illegal activity with the Chinese.

He said his client may have "raised some eyebrows" and "did a dumb thing" when he
gave a talk at a Chinese university in Beijing about information in the public domain
-- but it went no further.

"Mr. Chung is not playing ball with the Chinese guys ...," Bienert said. "He's not working with them. There's no evidence he gave them technical information.

"He picks things up for his own use and edification," Bienert said. "He likes to
learn as much as he can about stress fatigue."

The defense attorney said there are references in the evidence gathered by agents
that Chung sent books and magazines to China.

"That's not a crime," he said. "Mr. Chung is an intellectual. He likes knowledge for
the sake of knowledge. He likes to share knowledge. He does that because he'd like to
see China become more like America."

Bienert also argued said the Economic Espionage Act was not in effect in the 1980s
and that the statute of limitations had run on any alleged criminal activity.

Closing arguments will conclude later today, at which point Carney is expected to
take the case under submission.

Chung, who is free on $250,000 bail, is charged with six counts of economic
espionage, one count of lying to a federal agent and one count each of conspiracy,
acting as a foreign agent and obstruction of justice.

Previously: Boeing spy trial underway