28 Jan (NucNet): A former labourer at the Oak Ridge complex in the US state of Tennessee has pleaded guilty to unlawful disclosure of restricted data under the country�s atomic energy law.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) said that Roy Lynn Oakley, 67, of Tennessee, pleaded guilty on 26 January 2009 in the US District Court in Knoxville.

Oakley had been employed as a labourer and escort by Bechtel Jacobs at the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP)* on the Department of Energy�s Oak Ridge site.

According to Oakley�s plea agreement, while employed at the ETTP from 2006 to 2007 he had a security clearance that gave him access to classified and protected materials, including instruments, appliances and information relating to the gaseous diffusion process for enriching uranium.

In an undercover investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Oakley was contacted in January 2007 by an FBI agent who posed as an agent of a foreign government. In recorded calls and during a face-to-face meeting with the undercover agent, Oakley said that he had taken certain parts of uranium enrichment fuel rods or tubes and other associated hardware items from the ETTP and that he wanted to sell the materials for 200,000 US dollars (USD) (about 150,000 euro) to the foreign government.

Once Oakley handed over the pieces of tubes and associated items to the undercover agent and received USD 200,000 in cash, he was confronted by FBI agents and he admitted to trying to sell the materials to a foreign government.

The DOJ said the materials Oakley had tried to sell were �pieces of equipment known as �barrier� and associated hardware items that play a crucial role in the production of highly enriched uranium, a special nuclear material, through the gaseous diffusion process�.

Oakley will be sentenced in May 2009. The maximum penalty for violation of the US Atomic Energy Act by disclosing restricted data is 10 years imprisonment and a criminal fine of USD 250,000.

*The ETTP is an area of the Oak Ridge complex where buildings last used in 1985 are undergoing decontamination and decommissioning. When they were in use, some of the buildings at ETTP housed facilities used for the enrichment of uranium.

� by John Shepherd

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