The Rocky Mountain Collegian

Issue date: 3/25/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Bill Robles - Associated Press Chi Mak, a Chinese-born and naturalized U.S. citizen, listens to testimony in this April 2007 file artist's drawing, during his trial in federal court in Santa Ana, Calif. Mak, who was convicted of conspiracy to export U.S. defense technology to China was sentenced in California, Monday, to 24.5 years in federal prison.

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) - A Chinese-born engineer convicted of conspiracy to export U.S. defense technology to China was sentenced Monday to 24.5 years in federal prison by a judge who said the defendant betrayed his adopted country.



Chi Mak, 67, a naturalized U.S. citizen who worked on naval propulsion systems, was also convicted of acting as an unregistered foreign agent, attempting to violate export control laws and making false statements to the FBI.



Federal prosecutors asked for 30 years, while Mak's defense team proposed 10 years.



Mak asked U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney for leniency before sentencing. Four of Mak's relatives, including his wife, pleaded guilty last year to related offenses in exchange for leniency.



"I don't know so much about the law, but I feel I never intend to violate any law at all. I never intend to hurt my country. I love this country. I don't believe I hurt this country," Mak told the judge. "The truth is not like the one the prosecutor says. I still hope for justice."



The judge said Mak lied on immigration and government security clearance forms and perjured himself on the witness stand.



"I do believe a high-end sentence is appropriate here. Mr. Mak sadly, I believe, betrayed the United States. ... I really don't know how much damage he's done to us," Carney said.



"He's a very humble man, a very warm man and he wants to be helpful," the judge said, referencing letters of support from Mak's friends and former colleagues and friends. "But it's those traits and that persona that allowed him to pass information to the People's Republic of China."



Mak, who worked for Anaheim-based naval defense contractor Power Paragon, was arrested in late 2005 after FBI agents stopped his brother and sister-in-law as they boarded a flight to Hong Kong and Guangzhou, China.

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