In AP interview, ex-Los Alamos physicist says he met with foreign agent who paid him $20,000

Ex-Los Alamos lab physicist describes meetings

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. — It’s a tale of intrigue, involving a nuclear weapons physicist at a national laboratory and a mystery man, supposedly from the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, fluent in Spanish and English.

Late last year, that mystery man paid the scientist, P. Leonardo Mascheroni, $20,000 in cash left in a drop box at the Albuquerque airport, according to Mascheroni, who says he kept it in a closed envelope that was opened by FBI agents who searched his Los Alamos home Monday.

Mascheroni, in an interview at his home Thursday with The Associated Press, said he wasn’t interested in the money itself — not the $20,000 in the envelope nor the $800,000 he had asked for from the Venezuelan government for his work. Instead, he said, his motives were pure: He wanted the chance to pursue his theories of nuclear fusion.

“People are going to say, ‘He really wanted the $800,000 and to disappear,’” Mascheroni said. “But those are the guys who don’t know my character. … A person like me is driven by the science. I am that kind of a person who goes inside my world. I see global security as a very important part of my science.”

The story Mascheroni recounted Thursday seemed far removed from the quiet Los Alamos neighborhood where he lives amid Ponderosa pines and yellow-blooming chamisa in the foothills of the Jemez Mountains.

Last year, the 74-year-old scientist believed the Venezuelan government wanted him to produce a study on how to build a nuclear weapons program. In return, he asked for the $800,000, which he planned to use for his scientific work in New Mexico and persuade Congress to take a look at his theories.

Now, he believes the U.S. government is wrongly targeting him as a spy, an accusation he insisted is not true.

In the raid Monday, the FBI seized computers, letters, photographs, books and cell phones from his home of the former Los Alamos National Laboratory nuclear scientist.

No charges have been filed. An FBI spokesman confirmed the agency is pursuing an “ongoing investigation” in Los Alamos but declined further comment on the probe or on Mascheroni’s claims.

Dressed in a gray sweater and khakis, Mascheroni told the AP on Thursday — across a worn coffee table in his living room — that he only provided the mystery man, whom he called “Luis,” with unclassified materials found on the Internet.

He hoped the information would show Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez that such a program was too impractical and expensive for the South American country.

Mascheroni said “Luis” was a man in his 40s from the Venezuelan embassy. They spoke in Spanish and English. The mystery man told him: “The less that you know about me is the best for you.”

At a one-hour February 2008 meeting at a Santa Fe hotel, Luis talked to Mascheroni about how to start a nuclear weapons program in Venezuela. Mascheroni initially told The AP the hotel was in Los Alamos.

Mascheroni said the man called him the next day, asking for another 30-minute meeting and proof of his scientific credentials.

In July 2008, Mascheroni said he received a formal request via e-mail from his Venezuelan contact to write a study for how to build a nuclear weapons program.

Mascheroni said he finished the study in November 2008 and, following directions, placed a CD containing only unclassified information available on the Internet — which he already had provided to congressional staffers — inside a post office box at the Albuquerque airport.

Later, he said, he received an e-mail telling him to return to the same post office box where he found a note that said there was $20,000 in $100 bills inside an envelope.

“I never opened the envelope,” he said.

During their last meeting in July, Mascheroni said Luis told him the Venezuelan government approved of his proposal but the two had a disagreement over his fee.

The scientist said he wanted $400,000 deposited in a Los Alamos bank and another $400,000 paid in person when he traveled to Venezuela to give a presentation.

According to Mascheroni, Luis tried to persuade him to open an offshore account. Mascheroni said he looked into where he could get such an account but never opened one.

Chavez has scoffed at speculation that Mascheroni was working with his government, saying Venezuela hopes to develop a nuclear energy program for peaceful uses with help from Russia.

Mascheroni worked in the nuclear weapons design division at the Los Alamos lab from 1979 until being laid off in 1988 after advocating for development of a hydrogen-fluoride laser to generate fusion.

Asked why he pursued contact with the purported Venezuelan representative, Mascheroni said he was motivated by his belief in cleaner, less expensive and more reliable nuclear weapons and power.

He began approaching other countries after his ideas were rejected by the lab and, later, congressional staffers.

Mascheroni, who is from Argentina but became a U.S. citizen in 1972, said he approached the Venezuelan government and Luis contacted him in return.

During the 13-hour search Monday, FBI agents found the envelope at Mascheroni’s home containing the $20,000 and counted the money for him.

Mascheroni said the agents told him they retrieved the CD from Luis, and was told that he was apprehended in Miami trying to leave the country. He said he now doesn’t know whether Luis was a representative of Venezuela or a U.S. agent posing as one.

But he hopes his case will finally give him the chance to publicize his scientific ideas.

“Deep inside my brain, I am happy. I am not with fear,” Mascheroni said.