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TOPICS
FBI Agent Charged With Spying
December 19, 1996
THE DAILY FED
FBI Agent Charged With Spying
A 13-year veteran FBI supervisor and former counterintelligence officer was charged Wednesday with selling secret information to Russia from 1987 to 1992 for at least $224,000.
The agent, Earl Edwin Pitts, was arrested following a 16-month investigation in which a former Russian official cooperated with FBI agents in setting up a false spying operation in order to trap him. A special sting operation was necessary since Pitts became a dormant spy after 1992, when he moved to work with less sensitive information.
In a news conference, FBI Director Louis Freeh said that "we are conducting... a damage assessment," but that he "certainly would not compare him with Aldrich Ames in any degree." Ames, a former CIA officer, was convicted of espionage activites that are believed to have resulted in the deaths of 10 agents.
The FBI began to suspect in early 1993 that it was harboring a Russian spy in its ranks. Soon, attention focused on Pitts, who had spent part of his career in counterintelligence work. Eventually, even Pitts' wife cooperated with the sting operation against him.
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