Former intelligence employee caught selling top secret docs to Chinese

On June 22, Kevin Patrick Mallory was brought before a US federal judge for his first hearing on charges that he sold highly classified documents to a Chinese intelligence agent. These documents, which are considered "National Defense Information," included at least one Top Secret document and three classified as Secret, were found on a phone Mallory had been provided by his Chinese contacts. Mallory, a 60-year-old former Central Intelligence Agency employee living in Leesburg, Va., had thought the documents were in messages that had been deleted automatically from the device. Mallory faces life in prison if convicted.

Mallory, an independent consultant, had previously been an employee of "various government agencies" as well as several defense contractors. An Army veteran, Mallory worked at the State Department from 1987 to 1990. And according to the Washington Post, Mallory was also confirmed to have worked at the CIA, among other places. According to the FBI, Mallory was also an Army reservist during this time, and served on active duty for several deployments. For much of his career, he held a Top Secret clearance, which was rescinded when he left government service in 2012.

According to the indictment, at some point during his service at the unnamed agency or at a defense contractor, Mallory—who is fluent in Mandarin—secreted out a collection of documents. Mallory told the FBI that while in China doing consulting work for a state-funded think tank in March and April of this year, he was approached by individuals he then believed to be with China's intelligence service and was given a phone to communicate with them secretly. During an interview with the FBI on May 24, FBI agent Stephen Green recounted in affidavit requesting an arrest warrant: