By Richard Pollock
Glenn Woodell, a NASA supervisor who pled guilty to violating U.S. espionage laws involving a Chinese NASA contractor was given a slap on the wrist with six months’ probation and a $250 fine, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.
Daniel Jobson, a Woodell colleague and fellow NASA supervisor, had his espionage charges reduced to a misdemeanor and was released without any penalty.The lenient plea deals were quietly delivered October 26 in U.S. District Court in Newport News, Virginia. The U.S. Attorneys office did not to issue a press release about the deals and declined comment when contacted by the DCNF.
Woodell was charged under Title 18 of the nation’s espionage laws and faced a maximum penalty of one-year imprisonment and a fine of $100,000.
“It’s like a traffic ticket or something for littering,” commented former U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf in an interview with the DCNF. A former Virginia Republican congressman who was chairman of a House appropriations oversight subcommittee for NASA, worked to expose Bo Jiang, the Chinese NASA contractor at the heart of the espionage case.