Accused spy carried cash, secret files, agents say

By KATE WILTROUT
The Virginian-Pilot
Aug. 16, 2006

NORFOLK - When Ariel J. Weinmann stepped off an international flight into the Dallas airport on March 26, a federal customs agent was waiting for him.

Before the plane's arrival, customs had run passengers' names through a database listing outstanding arrest warrants. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Allen Brock knew only that the Navy wanted to arrest the 21-year-old petty officer third class on a charge of deserting the submarine Albuquerque last July.

What he found in Weinmann's backpack and pockets led to three charges of espionage against the sailor. The Navy disclosed some of those details for the first time Friday. Weinmann was carrying $4,000 cash, three CD-ROMs, an external computer storage device and a number of memory cards for storing digital images, according to testimony from his preliminary hearing.

Brock testified that he also found Weinmann carrying a piece of paper with the names, Social Security numbers and birth dates of two individuals, as well as a notebook whose handwritten contents aroused his suspicion.

Brock alerted a supervisor, who popped one of the CDs from Weinmann's backpack into a computer. What the customs agents saw is now classified by the government - as is much of the other evidence against the fire control technician.

"The contents of the CD are the basis of the case," said Lt. William Tansey, one of his defense attorneys, during the Article 32 hearing on July 25. "Looking at those CDs changed the course of the entire case."

The Navy originally refused to release basic information about the Weinmann case - including the dates of his Article 32, or preliminary hearing - but reversed course after The Virginian-Pilot revealed Weinmann's confinement, and the secrecy with which it was being handled.

On Friday, the Navy played a recording of the hearing - which lasted two days, not a single day as public affairs officials had said - for the media.

Weinmann has been charged with three counts of espionage, and stands accused of passing classified information to a foreign government representative - once in Austria and again in Mexico.

Navy officials have refused to say which government they believe he was in contact with and have not disclosed what sort of information he is accused of providing.

He's also accused of stealing a Navy computer and destroying its hard drive "by smashing it with a mallet and cutting off the pins," according to the charges.

The charges could result in a life sentence if Weinmann is court-martialed and found guilty.

While desertion and espionage in times of war can carry the death penalty, "no one considers this a capital case," Capt. Max Jenkins said Friday.

Jenkins is commanding officer of the Regional Legal Service Office in Norfolk.

Naval Criminal Investigative Service special agent Kevin Burke, who questioned Weinmann over nine days after he was brought to Norfolk from Dallas, said the sailor was found with dozens of computer files containing biographical information "at the classified level."

Burke also said the $4,000 in U.S. currency found on Weinmann was in sequentially numbered $100 bills that were "crisp and clean."

Weinmann's explanation during his first day of questioning - that the money was his savings - "just wasn't plausible," Burke testified.

"He was, in my opinion, lying about creating an explanation for where he was and what he had been doing," Burke said. "It just appeared to me that he was telling a story about thinking about writing a book."

Burke was one of six NCIS agents or employees who testified over two days. The other witnesses were Brock and an FBI agent who sat in on most of the interviews with Weinmann.

Their statements shed light on the international investigation that followed Weinmann's arrest, as well as the lengthy interrogation that followed.

He consented to the questioning and did not request a lawyer, according to testimony.

As NCIS agents in Norfolk were questioning Weinmann, other Navy investigators and FBI agents interviewed Weinmann's parents and sister in Oregon. They seized an 11-page letter Weinmann had sent to his sister and searched her computer, according to testimony.

After Weinmann told them he had been living in Austria and described his apartment to them in detail, NCIS agents were dispatched to Vienna.

There, they said they retrieved a Navy-issued laptop computer that Weinmann is accused of stealing from the bridge of the submarine. When the computer was sent to Norfolk weeks later, investigators saw its hard drive had been removed.

Agents also traveled to Mexico City to see a hotel and Internet cafe that Weinmann had supposedly frequented.

The lengthy interviews sometimes lasted all day and night, with breaks for meals.

"There was nothing about this case that was normal to me," Burke said.

It was unusual in another way, too, multiple agents said, Weinmann was not returned each night to the brig, but put up in a Navy-run lodge on the Norfolk base, where he was under constant surveillance.

Tansey and Lt. Cmdr. Karen Somers, his lead defense attorney, spent a lot of time questioning that arrangement and querying witnesses about how clearly Weinmann understood he could stop the interrogation at any time.

"The entire process was voluntary and consensual," Burke said.

FBI agent Suzanne Turnau described Weinmann as cooperative but evasive. His answers were often lengthy and detailed.

Burke said Weinmann's story changed during subsequent interviews, and he mentioned written statements that Weinmann made, without disclosing the contents.

"He had admitted to a pretty significant offense in that statement on April 2," Burke said at one point.

Burke, who works out of the NCIS' Norfolk office, described the "rapport-building process" he used with Weinmann, starting off with an "icebreaker" to gather basic biographical information.

Three days into the questioning, after getting Weinmann civilian clothing, Burke said they went outdoors for a walk to give Weinmann "an opportunity to clear his head."

"I was trying to get him to trust me," Burke said.

He described only one confrontation with Weinmann, on the fifth day of questioning. Burke said he suspected Weinmann was lying.

"I told him that we were done. We're tired of being lied to. You're making us look like fools," Burke recalled. He left the interview room, and as the door was closing behind him, Burke testified, Weinmann asked him to return.

"He was yelling to me, 'Come back, come back. Don't leave me here. I want to talk to you.' "

The testimony, and dozens of classified exhibits, is now in the hands of Lt. Cmdr. John Bauer, a Navy attorney who served as the investigating officer at the hearing.

Bauer will recommend whether to pursue charges against Weinmann in a court-martial. Decisions on which charges to refer to court martial and what sentence to seek ultimately rest with the "convening authority" - in this case, the Fleet Forces Commander, Adm. John B. Nathman.

Navy officials expect Bauer to complete his report next week.

Reach Kate Wiltrout at (757) 446-2629 or [email protected].












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