US Intelligence Officer Pleads Guilty To Selling Secrets

Mar 15, 2019, 4:43 PM | Updated: Jun 8, 2022, 5:14 pm

Ron Rockwell Hansen

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A former U.S intelligence officer charged with trying to sell secrets to China is now pleading guilty after admitting that foreign agents targeted him for recruitment.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release that the 59-year-old Ron Rockwell Hansen of Syracuse, Utah, accepted a plea deal Friday that calls for a sentence of 15 years.

Hansen pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to gather or deliver national defense information to aid a foreign government. Prosecutors say he received hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation for providing information to Chinese agents from 2014-2018.

Hansen arrested in June 2018. His illegal activity occurred several years after he retired from the U.S. government, but he still had access to classified information.

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