HAWAII – Retried Army Lt. Colonel and civilian defense contractor was sentenced to seven years and three months in prison for e-mailing classified defense information in March to a 27-year-old Chinese woman with whom he had a romantic relationship, according to authorities.
The woman was in the U.S. as a graduate student, officials said.
Benjamin Pierce Bishop, 60, a former Honolulu man was a defense contractor
The classified information related to joint training and planning sessions between the United States and the Republic of Korea and was classified at the secret level, officials said.
U.S. Attorney Florence Nakakuni said: “This is the second major espionage case prosecuted in the District of Hawaii, and is particularly troublesome because it involves the communication of classified information to a citizen of the People’s Republic of China.”
Bishop also admitted to unlawfully retaining at his residence multiple classified documents that related to the national defense, including the U.S. Armed Forces Defense Planning Guide for years 2014 through 2018, a document entitled Optimizing U.S. Force Posture in the Asia‑Pacific, the U.S. Department of Defense China Strategy, the 2010 Guidance for Employment of Force and a classified photograph of a Chinese naval asset that Bishop retrieved from classified sources based on a request from the Chinese woman, officials said.
The documents had been removed from Bishop’s workplace at U.S. Pacific Command.
“Willfully communicating national defense information to a person not entitled to receive it is a serious threat to our national security,” said Assistant Attorney General John P. Carlin. “In committing this crime, Bishop violated his oath to protect the classified information with which he was entrusted. This conduct is unacceptable and we will continue to investigate and seek to hold accountable those who engage in it.”