dictionary

TAMPA, Florida (CNN) -- A retired Army intelligence chief was convicted in U.S. District Court Tuesday of smuggling crucial military documents to the Soviet Union. George Trofimoff, 74, could be sentenced to life in prison.

Trofimoff, a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve when he retired in 1994, had been charged with passing military secrets to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He had served as a civilian employee of the U.S. Army in Germany during much of his 35-year career in military intelligence.

Trofimoff was accused of conspiring to sell U.S. military secrets to the KGB -- the Soviet spy agency -- for more than 20 years beginning in 1969.

The FBI said the KGB paid Trofimoff $250,000 for his two decades of service.

	LEGAL RESOURCES
Latest Legal News
Law Library
FindLaw Consumer Center Select a topic Bankruptcy Discrimination Divorce Estate Planning Landlord-Tenant Personal Injury Taxes

Trofimoff, who was born in Germany to Russian emigres, became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1951. He enlisted in 1948, was commissioned five years later and spent nearly 35 years working for the government.

As head of a U.S. Army office in Germany where interviews with refugees and defectors from Warsaw Pact countries were conducted, Trofimoff had access to sensitive military information, officials said.

Donna Bucella, U.S. attorney in Tampa, said Trofimoff had access to "intelligence objectives, priorities for strategic objectives, documents which detailed the U.S. current state of knowledge of Soviet and Warsaw Pact military organizations and capabilities and the current chemical and biological warfare threat posed by the Soviet Union and its allies."

DOCUMENTS Indictment (US v. Trofimoff) (FindLaw) (PDF) Documents in PDF format require Adobe Acrobat Reader for viewing.

Trofimoff had been arrested in Germany several years ago on suspicion of espionage, officials said.

Trofimoff, who married five times, concealed his activities for 25 years from U.S. authorities and his wives. He controlled access to the documents and carefully copied them at night in his basement.

The jury took two hours Tuesday to return a guilty verdict. .