A jury on Sept. 25 convicted James Fondren Jr., a retired USAF lieutenant colonel and former Pentagon civilian employee, of passing classified information to the Chinese government. He could face up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced in January, the Associated Press reported Sept. 26. The Justice Department accused Fondren, 62, of providing the classified information from November 2004 to February 2008 to Tai Shen Kuo, a naturalized US citizen from Taiwan who was a Chinese spy, while Fondren was deputy director of the Washington, D.C., liaison office of US Pacific Command. The trial began Sept. 21 in US District Court in Alexandria, Va. (For more, read the Washington Post’s Sept. 25 report.)
Members of the House Armed Services Committee say the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile program has been set back three months due to the ongoing government shutdown. The comment is noteworthy because the JATM's status has been kept tightly under wraps.
