An ex-CIA officer was convicted Monday of leaking details of a secret Iranian operation to a New York Times reporter.
Jeffrey Sterling, 47, was convicted of all nine counts he faced in federal court after a two-week-long trial.
The basis of the trial originated from a 2006 book by journalist James Risen titled State of War, which depicted a mission to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions by giving the country deliberately flawed nuclear weapons blueprints to use, according to the Associated Press.
The book, which describes the mission as completely botched and even possibly backfiring, was seemingly written from Sterling’s perspective, according to prosecutor Eric Olshan.
Sterling was the case handler for “Merlin,” a CIA asset who had been a Russian unclear engineer sent to deliver the faux blueprints to the Iranians in hopes they would use them to develop the nuclear parts, only to have them never work properly.
The trial was delayed for years, as Risen refused to give up his sources for the book. There was also a lack of direct evidence against Sterling, but prosecutors pushed that the circumstantial evidence against him was overwhelming.
