LOS ANGELES – A Marina del Rey man was sentenced Monday to more than three years in prison for providing top secret information about a network used to control and communicate with military satellites to an individual he believed was a foreign intelligence officer working for the People’s Republic of China, officials said.
Brian Scott Orr, 42, was sentenced to three years and one month in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell. Orr was also ordered to pay a $10,000 fine, officials said.
From September 2013 until November 2013, authorities said Orr met with an individual whom he believed to be a representative of a Chinese intelligence service, but who was in reality an undercover FBI agent. Orr met with the undercover agent multiple times and provided a two thumb drives that contained sensitive military technical data he had obtained during his employment at the Air Force Research Laboratory.
According to the plea agreement filed in this case, Orr provided the training materials he had obtained at the Research Laboratory to the undercover agent and received $5,000.
After being arrested by the FBI and charged last November, Orr pleaded guilty on March 17 to retention of stolen government property.
Orr is a former civilian employee who worked for the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, New York, from 2009 through 2011.
Orr told the the undercover agent that he was the “foremost expert on attacking the computer network.” During the course of his communications with the undercover agent.
Orr stated that he could destroy or disrupt U.S. military satellites on behalf of the PRC government, the entity he believed the undercover agent was working for, according to the plea agreement.
According to sentencing papers filed by prosecutors, Orr suggested to the undercover agent that, for a “big reward,” he could explain “the full amount, how to…destroy it,” when discussing the satellite system.
Orr also suggested that he would need to be taken out of the country in order to “actually do something to this network.”
During one exchange, officials said Orr explained to the undercover agent that he was providing him with 2 gigabytes of data that had “all the courses” used to “train satellite network operators.”
While employed there, authorities said Orr maintained a Top Secret security clearance and was assigned to work on sensitive and classified matters related to the Air Force Satellite Control Network, a computer network used to control military satellites. Some of Orr’s responsibilities included the identification and evaluation of vulnerabilities in the network, officials said,.
While working in this capacity, Orr obtained various materials used to train personnel on how to operate the computer network, officials said.
Orr resigned from the Air Force Research Laboratory in 2011 after his access to classified and other sensitive areas had been withdrawn, but he unlawfully retained the restricted materials he had obtained. The materials were labeled with warnings restricting their export from the United States.