Thaindian News

ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO (BNO NEWS) – An Albuquerque, New Mexico couple on Friday were charged in a 22-count indictment regarding the development of a nuclear weapons program for Venezuela using U.S. classified nuclear data.

Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni, 75, and Marjorie Roxby Mascheroni, 67, were arrested by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents on Friday morning. They were charged with communicating classified nuclear weapons data to a person they believed to be a Venezuelan government official and conspiring to participate in the development of an atomic weapon for Venezuela, among other violations.

Mascheroni, an Argentinian national and naturalized U.S. citizen, is also charged with concealing and retaining U.S. records with the intent to convert them to his own use and gain, as well as six counts of making false statements.

Roxby Mascheroni, an American citizen, was additionally charged with seven counts of making false statements. If convicted of all the charges in the indictment, the defendants face a potential sentence of life in prison.

Mascheroni, a Ph.D. physicist, worked as a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico from 1979 to 1988. During that period he held a security clearance that allowed him to access certain classified information including restricted data.

His wife, Roxby, also worked at LANL from 1981 to 2010. Her duties were technical writing and editing. She also had security clearance and access like her husband to the restricted data.

According to the Atomic Energy Act, restricted data is classified information concerning the design, manufacture or use of atomic weapons; the production of special nuclear material; or the use of special nuclear material in the production of energy.

Mascheroni had a series of conversations with an undercover FBI agent posing as a Venezuelan government official in March 2008. In the talks, both men discussed the development of a nuclear weapons program for Venezuela. Mascheroni assured that he could help them to develop a nuclear bomb within 10 years.

The defendant also told the agent that under his program, Venezuela would use a secret, underground nuclear reactor to produce and enrich plutonium, and an open, above-ground reactor to produce nuclear energy. Mascheroni also asked about obtaining Venezuelan citizenship.

In July 2008, the undercover agent provided Mascheroni with a list of 12 questions purportedly from Venezuelan military and scientific personnel. In response, the defendant delivered to a previously arranged dead drop location a disk with a coded 132-page document containing restricted data related to nuclear weapons.

The document was written by Mascheroni and edited by his wife. It was entitled “A Deterrence Program for Venezuela” and laid out his nuclear weapons development program for Venezuela. The defendant claimed that the information contained in his document was worth millions of dollars. He was paid $793,000 for creating the document.

In June 2009, the undercover agent contacted the defendant once more and he gave him another list of questions, purportedly from Venezuelan officials, and $20,000 in cash as a first payment. One month later, Mascheroni delivered to the dead drop location a disk containing a 39-page document.

The document consisted of restricted data related to nuclear weapons. Mascheroni allegedly reiterated that the information he had provided was classified and was based on his knowledge of U.S. nuclear tests that he had learned while working at LANL, but said that he would state that the document was based on internet information in case the alliance does not work.

In August 2009, the Mascheronis met with the undercover agent at a hotel to further discuss his nuclear weapons development program for Venezuela. Later, FBI agents questioned them about the classified information. Both of them made a series of false statements in report.

The investigation was conducted by the FBI’s Albuquerque Division with assistance from the Department of Energy and LANL.