PHYSICIST AND WIFE PLEAD GUILTY TO ATTEMPTING TO SELL NUCLEAR SECRETS TO VENEZUELA

An Argentina-born American Physicist and his wife have pleaded guilty, in US District Court* in New Mexico, to attempting to assist Venezuela in developing an atomic bomb within ten years, through the sale of classified information they possessed, as former employees at the Los Alamos National laboratory. Fortunately, the "Venezuelan diplomat" was an undercover agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni, and his wife, Marjorie Roxby Mascheroni, face sentencing on charges that include selling classified data to an agent of a foreign power. The physicist could receive as much as 66 months in Federal Prison, followed by ten years of Supervised Release; his wife faces a shorter term of incarceration.
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*United States vs. Mascheroni et al, Case No.: 10-cr-02626-WJ (D NM).