Retired Boeing engineer guilty of spying

SANTA ANA, Calif., July 16 (UPI) -- A retired Boeing engineer was convicted in Southern California Thursday of supplying restricted information and trade secrets to China.

Dongfan "Greg" Chung, 73, of Orange, was found guilty in a bench trial before U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney of economic espionage, acting as an agent of the Chinese government and other charges related to the more than 30 years he worked for Boeing and Rockwell International.

The U.S. Attorney's office in Los Angeles said in a written statement that evidence in the case showed Chung, a naturalized U.S. citizen, as far back as 1979 was receiving requests from China's aviation industry for technical information from his employers. The investigation turned up some 250,000 pages of company documents at his home.

Officials said the data related to the Space Shuttle, Delta IV rocket as well as civilian and military aircraft, including the F-15 fighter and B-52 bomber.

Chung, who was acquitted on an obstruction-of-justice charge, will be sentenced in November.