No Retrial For Suspected Hanford Thief Missing Documents Allegedly Dealt With Fast Flux Test Facility Restart

A former research company employee will not be retried on charges that he possessed stolen documents related to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, a prosecutor said Thursday.

It would cost too much money to retry Randall Bonebrake, Kittitas County Prosecutor Greg Zempel said.

“To retry would incur a substantial amount of money to do it right,” Zempel said, noting that witnesses in the first trial came from Belgium and Washington, D.C.

A mistrial was declared May 5 when a jury failed to reach a unanimous decision on whether Bonebrake had possessed stolen property belonging to Advanced Nuclear and Medical Systems.

Bonebrake worked for the Richland company, which was attempting to obtain a contract to use a test reactor at Hanford.

Bonebrake was accused of illegally leaking controversial details of the company’s plans to restart the Fast Flux Test Facility for private use in producing tritium and, later, medical isotopes.

The papers detailed plans by Advanced Nuclear to try to import surplus German plutonium to power the FFTF reactor. They were leaked to the environmental group Greenpeace and the German news magazine Der Spiegel.

Bonebrake, a 29-year-old Central Washington University student, was convicted of possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.

He received a 50-day suspended jail sentence and 12 months’ probation.