A former officer with the Central Intelligence Agency who admitted stealing classified information and giving it to China in exchange for money, travel reimbursements, golf clubs and other compensation will be sentenced this morning in U.S. District Court.
Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, 71, who once also worked as an FBI linguist, was scheduled to stand trial Nov. 4.
He was charged in 2020 with conspiracy to gather and communicate U.S. national defense information to a foreign nation for allegedly working with his brother in California, also a retired CIA officer, to funnel secrets to agents of China’s Ministry of State Security.
He entered into a plea agreement May 24 with the U.S. Department of Justice. In return for Ma’s admission of guilt, federal prosecutors agree not to charge Ma with “additional offenses related to gathering, communicating and/or unlawfully retaining or possessing classified information.”
Ma is facing up to life in prison at 9 a.m. today. If Chief U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson hands down less than a life sentence, Ma must serve three years of supervised release after he gets out of federal prison.
Ma’s attorneys, Federal Public Defender Salina M. Kanai and First Assistant Federal Public Defender Craig W. Jerome, in a Sept. 4 sentencing memorandum, asked Watson to sentence Ma to 10 years behind bars.
U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson, chief of the Criminal Division, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig S. Nolan prosecuted the case.
In their sentencing memorandum filed Friday, federal prosecutors agreed that 10 years is adequate, noting Ma is less culpable in the crimes than his late brother.
“This is not to imply that Ma is not fully worthy of prosecution and significant punishment. He was and is. But Ma ultimately accepted responsibility for his conduct and elected not to challenge the government’s lengthy but justified delay in seeking his indictment in this case,” wrote Sorenson.
Kanai noted that Ma grew up without a good father and that his older brother filled that role.
Kanai argued that Ma’s motivation for selling secrets to China, what drove him to set up meetings like the one from March 24-26, 2001, was his brother, whom he loved and respected as a father figure due to the absence of their dad.
Ma’s brother was a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Shanghai who joined the CIA in 1967 and for years was assigned overseas. He died after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease.
In 1983 he resigned from the CIA after inappropriately assisting Chinese nationals in getting into the United States, and in 1998 was convicted of making false statements to a lending institution, according to the affidavit.
At that meeting, Ma and his older brother met with five agents of China’s Ministry of State Security in a Hong Kong hotel to sell intelligence about the CIA for $50,000.
His brother, 85 at the time of Ma’s arrest in 2020, was not charged in the case due to “an advanced and debilitating cognitive disease,” according to federal court records. The brother’s name is redacted in federal court filings.
“Alexander Ma has admitting to a serious offense, and the good conduct he has engaged in for the majority of his life, may, understandably, be overshadowed by that offense,” wrote Kanai. “Alex has made some seriously bad decisions and those decisions have led him to where is now. But in other aspects of his life — in many respects some of the most important aspects of his life — he has done everything right.”
Ma has “done right by his three children, all of whom are now grown and successful.”
Ma was a present, involved and caring father, so much so that one of his ex-wives wrote him a letter of support prior to sentencing.
“I know him to be above all a great father to our son,” wrote his ex-wife, Amy Ma.
Alexander Ma, who is almost 72, suffers from a medical condition that was also redacted.
“A 120-month term of incarceration is certainly a more significant punishment for someone with health issues in the twilight of his life than it would be for a younger, healthier defendant,” wrote Kanai. “It should also be taken into consideration that while Alex has been in custody, he has not had any institutional write-ups, and he has not tried to transmit classified information to anyone.”
Ma is charged with conspiracy to gather and communicate U.S. national defense information to a foreign nation. He worked with his late brother in California to send secrets to agents of China’s Ministry of State Security.
“Alexander Ma betrayed his adopted country and his own sworn secrecy oaths, which he solemnly entered into while employed as an officer of the Central Intelligence Agency,” wrote Sorenson in a Sept. 6 filing.
Ma conspired with his late brother, and “multiple intelligence officers of the People’s Republic of China, to provide classified U.S. intelligence information to the Shanghai State Security Bureau, a provincial branch of the PRC intelligence services responsible for, among other things, foreign intelligence collection.”
“Ma is nearly 72 years old with attendant health concerns. Despite this, he has agreed to serve 10 years’ imprisonment. The government views his willingness to accept responsibility under these circumstances as a mitigating factor,” wrote Sorenson. “In addition, Ma’s advanced age makes him unlikely to reoffend.”
After his guilty plea May 24, Ma “took part in five lengthy, and sometimes grueling, sessions over the course of four weeks, some spanning as long as six hours, wherein he provided valuable information and endeavored to answer the government’s inquiries to the best of his ability,” wrote Sorenson, noting that Ma cooperated with no promise of credit for cooperation. “While Ma at times appeared to minimize his culpability, he ultimately took ownership of his conduct and provided useful assistance to government agents.”
Ma is a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Hong Kong and moved to Honolulu in 1968 where he attended the University of Hawaii, according to federal court records. He had a condominium in Hawaii Kai and a home in China, where he also maintained at least one bank account.
Ma joined the CIA in 1982 and was assigned overseas, including China postings, until he resigned in 1989.
Ma and his brother allegedly disclosed to Chinese agents “CIA international operations, including the covers for CIA officers and activities; cryptographic information used in classified and sensitive CIA communications and reports; the internal structure and organization of the CIA; the identities of CIA officers and human assets; CIA’s staffing practices and technical departments; and CIA’s operational trade craft, including secure communication practices,” according to an Aug. 18, 2019, motion to detain Ma without bail.
