Suspected Russian Spy Denied Bail

CIA officer Harold J. Nicholson, charged with spying for Russia, was denied bail Monday at a hearing in which prosecutors revealed he has a Swiss bank account with $61,000 he did not report on financial disclosure forms.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Rawles Jones, Jr., concluded there is “a serious risk of flight” by the former CIA station chief and that he could pose a danger if released. “If the government’s case is taken at face value, the defendant may very well possess information still untransmitted to foreign powers,” Jones said.

Nicholson will plead innocent Dec. 2, his court-appointed lawyers reaffirmed.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Rob Chesnut used the bail hearing to introduce evidence about the Swiss bank account that the government discovered in searching Nicholson’s wallet and home after his arrest at Dulles Airport Nov. 16.

FBI agent Steven Hooper, one of two agents disguised as American Airlines baggage handlers to arrest Nicholson on the tarmac en route to an airplane, said a card in his wallet and a bank statement at his home showed he had $61,000 in Bank Leu in Switzerland. Hooper said Swiss authorities have frozen the account.

When the government indicted Nicholson last Thursday on one count of conspiracy to commit espionage, it increased its allegations of Nicholson’s Russian pay-offs from $120,000 to $180,000 without saying why.

Chesnut said promises that Nicholson wouldn’t flee could not be believed, in part because he had “a record of deception of the CIA and this court.” Chesnut said Nicholson failed to list the Swiss account on his CIA financial disclosure forms or in describing his assets to the court’s pretrial services officer before swearing in an affidavit that he was impoverished and could not afford a lawyer.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Connolly suggested in other questioning that Nicholson had not reported this money on his income taxes.