Man sentenced for trying to sell satellite secrets to Russia

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The U.S. attorney's office says a Southern California engineer who worked for a defense contractor has been sentenced to five years in prison for selling sensitive satellite information to an undercover FBI employee he thought was a Russian intelligence agent.

U.S. District Judge George H. Wu handed down the term Monday for 50-year-old Gregory Allen Justice of Culver City, an engineer on military and commercial satellite programs.

Justice had pleaded guilty to trying to commit economic espionage and attempting to send restricted information out of the United States in violation of the Arms Export Control Act and International Traffic in Arms Regulations.

According to court documents, Justice received $3,500 during a series of meetings and sent most of that money and thousands more to an "online paramour" he never met.