LOS ANGELES -- Nikolai and Svetlana Ogorodnikov, accused of luring the only FBI agent ever charged with espionage into spying against the United States, pleaded guilty in a plea bargain agreement Wednesday.
The former FBI agent, Richard Miller, testifying under a grant of immunity, was the key government witness against his onetime lover, Svetlana, and her husband in the Russian immigrants' 10-week trial.
The Ogorodnikovs, in the agreement with federal prosecutors, pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy. Bribery counts were dropped.
U.S. District Court Judge David Kenyon sentenced Ogorodnikov, 52, to eight years in federal prison. Sentencing for Mrs. Ogorodnikova, 35, was postponed to July 15. The plea bargain calls for her to be sentenced to 18 years in prison.
The proceedings prompted an emotional outburst from Ogorodnikov, who blamed everything on his wife and on the U.S. government.
'I did everything so as to help her, so that I became the sacrifice,' Ogorodnikov said, pointing and waving at his wife, who kept her head bowed, twisting a tissue paper between her shaking fingers as tears welled up in her eyes.
'She's a drunk,' Ogorodnikov screamed, pointing to her. 'She drank her whole life. It all came from her.
The 'American system,' he said, used his wife 'as a prostitute and I ended up outside like a dog.'
He was led away in handcuffs, wearing his black baseball cap.
Mrs. Ogorodnikova, standing before Kenyon, quietly answered 'yes' as her attorney, Brad Brian, recited the allegations against her and asked her whether they were true.
During Brian's questioning, she admitted arranging a meeting between Miller and Soviet officals at which the retired FBI agent was supposed to hand over secret documents.
Her comments also tainted Miller as the initiator of the espionage plot.
'In August 1984, Miller told Mrs. Ogorodnikova he wanted to work for the Soviet government and told her he'd sell them everything they wanted,' Brian said, asking her whether that was true.
'Yes,' she replied, her hands folded in front of her and her head bowed.
Miller, 48, faces his own espionage trial later this summer.
The Ogorodnikovs were arrested Oct. 2, 1984, at their Hollywood apartment on charges they offered Miller $65,000 in cash and gold in exchange for classified documents.
Throughout the trial, which began April 10, prosecutors tried to show that the Ogorodnikovs acted as Soviet spies and that Ogorodnikova went to great lengths to become a confidant of Miller's and a retired agent, John Hunt.
The government argued that the Ogorodnikovs immigrated in 1973, but became disillusioned with their life in the United States and wanted to 'earn' their way back to through service to the Soviet Union.
To accomplish that, the couple performed a variety of tasks, prosecutors said, for Soviet intelligence officers -- including spying on their fellow emigres, locating defectors, urging fellow Russians to return to the Soviet Union and criticizing America's way of life.
Those 'tasks,' as they were referred to during the trial, also included trying to bribe Miller, whom Ogorodnikova became sexually involved with, so as to infiltrate the FBI.
Miller testified that he never fell in love with the Russian woman, but was 'only playing around' with her when he promised to give her intelligence information.
