Conspirators

Remember the espionage case filed by US authorities against a Filipino, a Filipino-American and several co-conspirators residing in the Philippines?

Last year, Judge William Walls sentenced former Philippine police official Michael Ray Aquino to 76 months in jail after the defendant pleaded guilty to unauthorized possession of documents relating to US national defense. Aquino is now serving time at a federal correction institution in South Carolina even as he has appealed his case before the US Court of Appeals.

Aquino’s crime relates to the possession of classified documents passed on to him by Leandro Aragoncillo taken from the computer files of the FBI. The documents were found in Aquino’s computer after a police search.

Philippine-born Aragoncillo acquired American citizenship. He had served in the US Marines and worked as staff assistant to military advisers at the Office of the Vice-President in Washington before gaining employment as intelligence analyst at the FBI Fort Monmouth Information Technology Center in New Jersey.

Sometime in 2002, Aragoncillo met Aquino, who had fled the Philippines after the ouster of Joseph Estrada. He is implicated in two sensational cases: the alleged police rubout of Kuratong Baleleng gang members; and the murders of publicist Bubby Dacer and Emmanuel Corbito.

It was Aquino who introduced, by e-mail, Aragoncillo to Senator Panfilo Lacson, his former boss at the PAOCTF. From January 2005, according to the US attorney-general, Aragoncillo began e-mailing documents to both Aquino and Lacson under the alias “Juan Miguel.”

In March 2005, Aquino applied for a permanent resident status and a work visa with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office (ICE). He had, by that time, acquired training as a nurse and sought employment in the US. When ICE officers discovered that Aquino faced criminal charges in the Philippines, he was arrested.

According to the US attorney-general’s report, Aragoncillo then called up Senator Lacson for help to get Aquino released from custody. The senator responded by sending over $5,000 to pay for Aquino’s security bond. Aragoncillo e-mails Aquino the good news and, in turn, Aquino thanks the former for his intercession with ICE on his behalf.

But ICE notified the FBI of Aragoncillo’s intercession. That caused an FBI ethics committee investigation in the matter, citing Aragoncillo’s improper use of his position to influence ICE officers regarding this case. Shortly thereafter, the FBI obtained a court order to install a covert video camera in Aragoncillo’s cubicle. The camera records Aragoncillo making unauthorized searches of classified documents and copying them in diskettes which he brought home.

With enough evidence, federal agents arrested both Aquino and Aragoncillo in September 2005. A federal grand jury in September 2005 indicted Aquino for conspiracy and for acting as a foreign agent. He pleaded guilty to these charges.

On July 18, 2007, the court handed down a 120-month sentence on Aragoncillo after the defendant pleaded guilty to four counts of conspiracy, transmission and unlawful retention of classified documents, and unlawful use of a government computer to leak secret information to foreign nationals. The ex-Marine is now serving time in a federal facility in Texas.

Now comes the really interesting aspect of this case.

The federal grand jury, in Criminal Case 06-260, concluded that Aragoncillo “knowingly and willfully conspired” with six “co-conspirators” to transmit to a foreign government certain classified official documents “with the intent and reason to believe that they could be used to the injury of the US and to the advantage of a foreign nation.”

Aquino is serving time for being one of the six “co-conspirators” of Aragoncillo in this rather delicate and embarrassing case where, according to the information filed by the US attorney-general, he was “assisting Lacson in his quest to undermine the Arroyo administration and assume the presidency of the Philippines.”

Strangely, the other five “co-conspirators” in this indictment were not explicitly named. Perhaps this was in consideration of diplomatic sensitivities.

The other five “co-conspirators” were simply indicated, in the court documents, as “Executive Branch Official #1”, “Senator #1”, “Representative #1”, “Representative #2” and “Mayor #1”.

From the other items in the court documents, these personalities should not be hard to identify.

“Executive Branch Official #1” is described as someone who resigned from his post January 2001. “Senator #1” is described as the former head of the Philippine National Police and the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force. “Mayor #1” is described as the son of “Executive Branch Official #1”.

The question now is: What is the standing of the five other “co-conspirators” from the standpoint of US law enforcement?

We all know that in the principle of conspiracy, the guilt of one is the guilt of all. Aquino, the sixth co-conspirator, was found guilty.

The five others have not been formally indicted. Will they be arrested and formally indicted should they step on US soil?

The only way to establish that is for any one of the five to actually step on US soil. None of them have tried to do that, so far.

As for Aquino, we know his fate. He will likely be extradited to Manila after he has served his US jail sentence to face charges here for even more serious stuff.