Spy gets 8 years for espionage from prison

PORTLAND, Ore., Jan. 19 (UPI) -- A former CIA agent has received extra prison time after admitting he continued to spy for Russia while jailed for espionage.

Harold Nicholson, 59, was sentenced Tuesday to eight years by U.S. District Judge Anna Brown in Portland, Ore., the Justice Department said. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government and commit money laundering. The term will be served after the 24-year sentence he's already serving for his 1997 espionage conviction.

He is the first convicted spy to be convicted of new crimes involving the same country while jailed for espionage, the government said.

Nicholson admitted giving his son, Nathaniel, spying instructions when he visited him at federal prison in Sheridan, Ore., from 2006 to December 2008.

Nathaniel met with Russian agents in San Francisco, Mexico City, Lima, Peru, and Nicosia, Cyprus, to pass information from his father and collect money for him, the government said.

Nathaniel Nicholson was sentenced in December to five years probation.