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Walter Kendall Myers, a former State Department official, and his wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, have been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and 81 months in prison, respectively, for their roles in a nearly 30-year conspiracy to provide highly-classified U.S. national defense information to the Republic of Cuba. The sentences were handed down last Friday by Judge Reggie B. Walton in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

On November 20, 2009, defendant Kendall Myers, 73, aka "Agent 202," pleaded guilty to a three-count criminal information charging him with conspiracy to commit espionage and two counts of wire fraud. His wife, Gwendolyn Myers, 72, aka "Agent 123," and "Agent E-634," pleaded guilty to a one-count criminal information charging her with conspiracy to gather and transmit national defense information. The defendants, both residents of Washington, D.C., were arrested on June 4, 2009 by FBI agents and have remained in custody ever since.

Both defendants have agreed to the entry of a monetary judgment against them in the amount of $1,735,054. The assets that will be forfeited to the government towards satisfaction of that judgment include the proceeds from the sale of the defendants' apartment and vehicle, and various bank and investment accounts.

According to court documents, Kendall Myers began working at the State Department in 1977 as a contract instructor at the Department's Foreign Service Institute (FSI) in Arlington, Virginia. After living briefly with Gwendolyn in South Dakota, he returned to Washington, D.C., and resumed employment as an instructor with FSI. From 1988 to 1999, in addition to his FSI duties, he performed work for the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR). He later worked full-time in INR and, from July 2001 until his retirement in October 2007, was an intelligence analyst for Europe in INR where he specialized on European matters and had daily access to classified information through computer databases and otherwise. He received a "Top Secret" security clearance in 1985 and, in 1999, received access to "Sensitive Compartmental Information."

Gwendolyn Myers moved to Washington, D.C., in 1980 and married Kendall Myers in May 1982. She subsequently obtained employment with a local bank as an administrative analyst and later as a special assistant. Gwendolyn Myers was never granted a security clearance by the U.S. government.

In December 1978, while an employee of the State Department's FSI, Kendall Myers traveled to Cuba after being invited by a Cuban government official who had made a presentation at FSI. That Cuban official was an intelligence officer for the Cuban Intelligence Service (CuIS). This trip provided CuIS with the opportunity to assess or develop Myers as a Cuban agent. Myers kept a diary of his two-week trip to Cuba in which he explicitly declared his affinity for Fidel Castro and the Cuban government. The diary was recovered by the FBI in the investigation.

In 1979, Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers were visited in South Dakota by the same Cuban intelligence officer who had invited Kendall Myers to Cuba. During the visit, the Cuban intelligence officer recruited both of them to be clandestine agents for Cuba, a role in which they served for the next 30 years. Their recruitment by CuIS as "paired" agents is consistent with CuIS's past practice in the United States. Afterwards, CuIS directed Kendall Myers to pursue a job at the State Department or the CIA to gain access to classified information. Kendall Myers, accompanied by his wife, returned to Washington, D.C., where he pursued a position at the State Department.

During the time frame in which Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers were serving as clandestine agents for Cuba, the CuIS often communicated with its clandestine agents in the United States by broadcasting encrypted radio messages from Cuba on shortwave radio frequencies. Clandestine agents in the United States monitoring the frequency on shortwave radio could decode the messages using a decryption program provided by CuIS. Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers communicated with CuIS by this method. The shortwave radio they used to receive clandestine communications was purchased with money provided by CuIS. The shortwave radio was later recovered by the FBI.

According to the court documents, in April 2009, the FBI launched an undercover operation against the pair. Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers met four times with an undercover FBI source, on April 15th, 16th, and 30th, and on June 4, 2009. The meetings were all video- and audio-taped.
During the meetings, Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers made a series of statements about their past activities on behalf of CuIS, including how they used code names and how they had transmitted information to their CuIS handlers through personal meetings, "dead drops," "hand-to-hand" passes, and in at least one case, the exchange of shopping carts in a grocery store. The couple also stated that they had traveled to meet Cuban agents in Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina and other locations.

When asked by the undercover FBI agent if he had ever transmitted information to CuIS that was classified higher than "Secret," Kendall Myers replied, "oh yeah...oh yeah." He said he typically removed information from the State Department by memory or by taking notes, although he did take some classified documents home. Gwendolyn Myers admitted she would process the classified documents at home for delivery to their CuIS handlers. In the final meeting with the FBI source, Kendall Myers disclosed "Top Secret" national defense information related to sources and methods of gathering intelligence. He also admitted that he had previously disclosed the information to CuIS.

The admissions by Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers were corroborated by other evidence collected in the investigation. The FBI seized a shortwave radio in their apartment and confirmed overseas trips by the couple that corresponded to statements they made. The FBI also identified encrypted shortwave radio messages between CuIS and a handler for the couple that were broadcast in 1996 and 1997.

Furthermore, an analysis of Kendall Myers' State Department computer revealed that, from August 22, 2006, until his retirement on October 31, 2007, he viewed more than 200 intelligence reports concerning the subject of Cuba. Of these reports concerning Cuba, the majority was classified and marked "Secret" or "Top Secret." The FBI also located handwritten notes by Kendall Myers reflecting the gathering and retention of "Top Secret" information which he intended to provide the CuIS, but never did.

Finally, since at least 1983 and until 2007, Kendall Myers made repeated false statements to government investigators responsible for conducting background investigations which determined his continued suitability for a "Top Secret" security clearance. By not disclosing his and his wife's clandestine activity on behalf of CuIS and by making false statements to the State Department about their status as clandestine Cuban agents, he defrauded the United States whenever he received his government salary. Based on these false representations and promises, Kendall Myers obtained at least $1,735,054 in salary from the U.S. government for the benefit of him and his wife.

This investigation was conducted jointly by the FBI's Washington Field Office and the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security. The prosecution was handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney G. Michael Harvey, from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, and Senior Trial Attorney Clifford I. Rones, from the Counterespionage Section of the Justice Department's National Security Division.

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Last week, President Obama nominated Conrad Ernest Candelaria, James Edward Clark, Joseph Anthony Papili, and James Alfred Thompson to serve as U.S. Marshals.

"These individuals have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to public service throughout their careers," said President Obama. "I am proud to nominate them to serve and protect the American people as U.S. Marshals."

Conrad Candelaria, the nominee for U.S. Marshal for the District of New Mexico, began his career as a Public Safety Aide in 1985 at the Albuquerque Police Department, and ultimately rose to the position of Commander in August of 2003. Now retired after serving the Albuquerque Police Department for 25 years and holding the position of Commander for nearly seven years, Candelaria teaches part-time at the University of New Mexico, where he previously earned a Bachelor's degree, a Masters in Public Administration, and an Associate's Degree.

The nominee for U.S. Marshal for the Western District of Kentucky is Jim Clark. Clark has worked in the Marshals Service since 1996. Prior to his tenure in the Marshals Service, Clark worked for the Bureau of Prisons in West Virginia, and also served in the U.S. Air Force. He is currently the Acting Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal of the Western District of Kentucky.

Joseph Anthony Papili, the nominee for U.S. Marshal for the District of Delaware, is a 24 ½-year veteran of the Delaware State Police. Holding the rank of Major, he is the Special Operations Officer currently overseeing the Intelligence, Homeland Security, Homicide, Tactical, and other specialized units within the agency. He has been a member of the Executive Staff of the State Police since 1999. Papili received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Delaware in 1983.

Nominated for U.S. Marshal for the District of Utah is James Alfred Thompson. Thompson began his law enforcement career within the U.S. Marshals Service in 1983 as a Deputy U.S. Marshal in Greensboro, North Carolina. In 1987, he became an Inspector in the Witness Security Division of the U.S. Marshals Service in Nashville, Tennessee. Before filling the position of Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal of Utah in 1995, Thompson served as an instructor at the U.S. Marshals Service Training Academy in Glynco, Georgia for four years. He earned a Bachelor's degree in Education from the University of Memphis, and currently serves as the Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal for the District of Utah.

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The U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado recently held that a statute, the Stolen Valor Act, 18 U.S.C. § 704(b), which makes it a crime punishable by up to a year in jail for lying about having been awarded military decorations or medals, is unconstitutional because it violates the right to free speech. The District Court dismissed the case against the defendant and struck down the statute as unconstitutional because the restriction on speech was not narrowly tailored by the government to serve a compelling interest.

The defendant in this case was charged with violating the Stolen Valor Act after he lied that he was a wounded veteran who had served in Iraq with the Marines and had received a Purple Heart and Silver Star for his military service. The government argued that "defendant's admittedly false statements enjoy no First Amendment significance at all." In analyzing the constitutionality of the Stolen Valor Act, the District Court relied on a prior U.S. Supreme Court decision, U.S. v. Stevens, in which the Supreme Court considered the First Amendment ramifications of a federal statute criminalizing the creation, sale, or possession of depiction of animal cruelty. In Stevens, the Supreme Court had recognized limited instances of "well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem." Fraud is one of these limited classes of speech. However, the District Court found that the Stolen Valor Act did not require that anyone have been actually mislead, defrauded, or deceived by such misrepresentations. Because the Stolen Valor Act criminalizes the mere utterance of the false statement, regardless of whether anyone is harmed by it, the District Court used the strict scrutiny standard to determine whether the Stolen Valor Act violates the First Amendment.

Under the strict scrutiny analysis, the government must establish that the Act is narrowly tailored in restricting speech to serve a compelling government interest. The government argues that the Act "promotes a compelling interest in promoting heroism and sacrifice by our military personnel and, more particularly, that [d]iluting the meaning the meaning or significance of medals of honor, by allowing anyone to claim to possess such decorations, could impact the motivation of soldiers to engage in valorous, and extremely dangerous, behavior on the battlefield." The District Court determined that the government's assertion was "wholly unsubstantiated" to suggest that the heroism of servicemen and women is motivated "by considerations of whether a medal may be awarded" and therefore the Act was not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest. The District Court acknowledged "that there is much irony, to put it gently, in concluding that the core values of our system of governance, which our military men and women serve to defend with their very lives, are here invoked to protect false claims of entitlement to the honors that recognize the most courageous instances of that service."

Therefore, the District Court held that the Stolen Valor Act is facially unconstitutional and did not serve a compelling government interest to restrict speech. Thus, the Act is invalid and violates the First Amendment. The District Court dismissed the case against the defendant.

The case is U.S. v. Strandlof, Criminal Case No. 09-cr-00497-REB, dated July 16, 2010.