A former Marine and former FBI intelligence analyst at Fort Monmouth was sentenced July 18 to 10 years in prison for espionage and other charges.
U.S. District Judge William H. Walls sentenced Leandro Aragoncillo, 48, for his guilty pleas to espionage charges
Aragoncillo pleaded guilty May 4, 2006, to taking and transferring classified information to senior political and government officials of the Philippines in an attempt to destabilize and overthrow that country’s government, U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie said in a press release.
There is no parole in the federal system, and Aragoncillo can be expected to serve nearly the entire sentence except for potential good inmate credits. Judge Walls also fined Aragoncillo $40,000.
At his plea hearing last year, Aragoncillo admitted that he regularly transferred to his Philippine contacts national security documents classified as secret, and that the information could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation.
He also admitted traveling to the Philippines in January 2001 to meet his co-conspirators, including during a visit to the Malacanang Palace, the official residence of the president of the Philippines.
Aragoncillo admitted that some of the classified information he removed from the U.S. vice president’s office in Washington, D.C., between approximately October 2000 and February 2002 included information marked “top secret” that related to terrorist threats to United States government interests in the Philippines.
Aragoncillo, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in the Philippines and most recently a resident of Woodbury, was an FBI intelligence analyst at Fort Monmouth at the time of his arrest in 2005.
He admitted that his espionage activity continued during his time as an FBI analyst.
Aragoncillo and Michael Ray Aquino, a former Philippines National Police official, were arrested Sept. 10, 2005. Aquino was among those to whom Aragoncillo passed classified information.
Judge Walls sentenced Aquino to 76 months in federal prison for his guilty plea to unlawfully possessing and retaining documents and information relating to the national defense.
Aragoncillo pleaded guilty to four counts of an indictment: conspiracy to transmit national defense information; transmission of national defense information; unlawful retention of national defense information; and unlawful use of a government computer.
Christie credited special agents of the FBI Newark division, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Weysan Dun, for their investigation of the espionage case.