Spies for Cuba limit cooperation with US – prosecutors

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An American couple who has pleaded guilty to spying for Cuba will be sentenced tomorrow after a debriefing prosecutors said was tarnished but did not breach their plea agreement.

Former State Department official Walter Kendall Myers, who had access to classified information, and his wife, Gwendolyn, who worked at a bank, pleaded guilty to charges that they worked for Cuban intelligence for three decades.

As part of their plea agreement, Kendall Myers, 73, agreed to a sentence of life in prison while his wife, 72, agreed to be imprisoned for up to seven-and-a-half years as long as the government was satisfied with their cooperation in interviews.

Some debriefings “were marred by both of the defendants’ lack of recollection or inconsistencies and contradictions,” prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum filed last week.

“There were times when the FBI assessed that Kendall Myers, in particular, gave inconsistent or uncooperative responses or was intentionally withholding information,” prosecutors said.

Still, the prosecutors said they would not seek to invalidate the plea agreement.

To go to trial to seek longer a longer sentence for the wife was “not in the national interest” because too much could be revealed during court proceedings, they said.

A lawyer for the couple was not available for comment.

As part of the plea agreement, the two agreed to forfeit $1.7 million in assets, including a 37-foot yacht, the Justice Department has said. Kendall Myers is the great-grandson of the telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell.

The sentencing comes a week after the Obama administration deported 10 Russians who were accused of being sleeper spies for Moscow and living illegally here.

This week, an Iranian nuclear scientist who said he was abducted by US agents and brought to the United States went home. US officials have said the scientist had provided useful information and he was in the country voluntarily.