Jurors began deliberating Tuesday in the trial of a San Diego-based sailor facing espionage charges for allegedly selling military secrets to a Chinese intelligence officer.
Jinchao Wei, 25, who worked as a machinist’s mate aboard the USS Essex, is accused of sending sensitive information pertaining to U.S. Navy ships to a person he met online.
Prosecutors allege Wei was initially contacted in early 2022 over a Chinese social media site.
During those initial conversations, Wei was offered $500 to look into where various Navy ships were docked, which prosecutors say prompted Wei to tell a fellow sailor, “This is quite obviously (expletive) espionage.”
Over the next 18 months, Wei was paid thousands of dollars to send photographs and videos of the USS Essex, as well as thousands of pages of technical and operational documents concerning U.S. Navy surface warfare ships, prosecutors contend.
But during closing arguments Tuesday morning in San Diego federal court, Wei’s defense attorney, Sean Jones, told jurors the government hadn’t proven Wei knowingly engaged in espionage.
The attorney argued that Wei believed the man he was speaking with was merely a Chinese academic who was interested in military ships and described their conversations as educational in nature.
Jones said the espionage remark referred to one specific request made by the alleged officer, with which Wei refused to comply. Afterward, Jones said Wei was reassured that none of the subsequent requests involved anything untoward.
The importance of the information Wei allegedly divulged was debated by the prosecution and defense.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Barry said the information Wei sent could be used to target or sabotage ships, while Jones likened many of the documents Wei sent to what one might find inside an owner’s manual on a car and said much of the material already was publicly available online, which Barry denied.
Both sides agreed there wasn’t evidence of a political or ideological motive driving Wei’s behavior. Jones argued the absence of such political leanings showed Wei had no intent to commit espionage. Barry argued Wei’s motivations were financial, but Jones argued Wei never requested payments for the material he sent.
The prosecutor also argued Wei clearly understood he was engaging in illegal activity.
Barry said Wei had received training from the Navy regarding how to detect recruitment efforts from foreign governments and a search of his internet history showed that he had looked into other cases of U.S. Navy sailors who were prosecuted and convicted of espionage.
Wei faces seven counts, including espionage and conspiracy.
At the time of his arrest, then-San Diego U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman said Wei’s prosecution represented the first time an espionage-related charge had been filed against someone in the Southern District of California.
The arrest coincided with that of another sailor, but based out of Naval Base Ventura County. That sailor, Petty Officer Wenheng Zhao – accused of sending sensitive military information to a Chinese intelligence officer – ultimately pleaded guilty to federal charges, and was sentenced last year to 27 months in prison.
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