Jury convicts retired Air Force officer of selling secrets to China, faces 20 year sentence

Retired AF officer convicted in China spying case

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A jury has convicted a retired Air Force officer on charges of selling classified information on U.S.-China military relations to a Chinese agent and lying to the FBI about it.

James W. Fondren Jr. was convicted Friday on three counts in Alexandria federal court and was acquitted on several others. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.

Fondren retired from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel in 1996 and later worked at the Pentagon as a civilian.

He was charged with funneling classified military information to Tai Shen Kuo, a New Orleans furniture salesman and naturalized U.S. citizen who turned out to be a spy for China.

Prosecutors said Fondren wrote “opinion papers” for Kuo that were often thinly veiled reports of classified military information.