The Culver City Real Estate area, like most great places to live and work, is not known for its problems with espionage. That’s why it has come as shock to Martin Feinberg, Culver City Realtor, and many residents, that a local engineer has been convicted of attempting to sell military intelligence information to a Russian spy.
Gregory Allen Justice was sentenced on September 18th to five years in federal prison for stealing state secrets and selling them to an undercover FBI agent posing as a Russian intelligence agent. He pled guilty in May to violation of the Arms Export Control Act and International Traffic in Arms Regulations.
Justice admitted to stealing proprietary trade secrets—gained while he worked as an engineer for Boeing on military projects—and passing them to the undercover agent. Justice also offered to take the undercover agent on a tour of Boeing’s production facility. In exchange for the information, Justice received just $3,500 in cash.
According to Acting United States Attorney Sandra R. Brown, “Justice understood that the information he provided would be sent ‘back to Moscow…. His actions posed an imminent threat to our national security. By virtue of the excellent work of the FBI, there was no damage to our security interests, and a person who was willing to sell important information to a foreign power will now serve a considerable amount of time in a federal prison.”
Martin Feinberg, Realtor, was interested to learn that the case against Justice was handled and investigated by both the FBI and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. The Terrorism and Export Crimes Section of the United States Attorney’s Office and the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section then prosecuted the case. It’s interesting to see the government at work and to better understand how threats against communities and espionage are handled.