WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 (UPI) -- A federal judge in Washington has found reporters from four major U.S. news agencies in contempt for refusing to reveal sources in a nuclear spying story.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Jackson said the reporters would be subject to fines of $500 per day until they revealed the names of federal officials who provided information about nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee.
Wen claims officials from the Justice Department, FBI and Energy Department leaked private information about him and his family when he was under investigation for allegedly spying for China while employed at the Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory in New Mexico. Several news organizations named him as the chief suspect.
Attorneys for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, CNN and the Associated Press said they were planning to appeal.
Wen was charged in December 1999 with 59 counts of mishandling classified information and violating the Atomic Energy Act, and jailed for nine months. He pleaded guilty in September 2000 to a single felony charge of downloading nuclear weapons data to portable tapes and was freed.
