Judge to let spy suspect out of jail

Deborah Cummings, a special-education teacher who has been in jail for 16 months on espionage-related charges, was ordered released on bond and electronic monitoring Monday by a federal judge.

U.S. District Judge Robert Whaley said he now believes Cummings, set to stand trial in September, is not a flight risk and doesn’t pose a danger to national security.

“She thinks it’s great news,” Cummings’ attorney, Christian Phelps, said after the hearing.

The judge said releasing defendants who aren’t flight risks or dangers to the community is a fundamental cornerstone of a democracy in which courts must protect the rights of people presumed innocent prior to trial.

“Will you show up for trial and all other proceedings?” Whaley asked Cummings in the courtroom.

“Absolutely,” she responded.

Whaley ordered Cummings, 41, to surrender her passport, post a $25,000 signature bond and wear an electronic monitoring device when she is released.

That won’t happen until later this week after a federal probation officer drafts a release plan and inspects Cummings’ brother’s home in Cheney where she will live.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Earl Hicks, who is handling the prosecution, wouldn’t comment when asked after the hearing if the government would appeal Whaley’s decision to release Cummings.

Later in the day, U.S. Attorney Jim McDevitt said the Justice Department would not file an emergency appeal to block, at least temporarily, Cummings’ release.

Cummings, who worked for the Pasco School District, and her ex-husband, Rafael Davila, were arrested in February last year.

Davila, a former intelligence officer with the Washington Army National Guard, was charged with stealing and keeping top-secret national security documents. He was released on home monitoring in December and is staying with his daughter in Spokane Valley.

Cummings, whose phone call to military authorities initiated the investigation, was charged with keeping and distributing the documents.

Federal investigators allege Cummings mailed some of the classified documents to anti-government and white supremacy groups – a charge she denied in a jailhouse interview.

She was ordered held without bond after Whaley determined in February 2003 that she presented a danger to the community.

Hicks argued that the FBI has been unable to locate the missing national security documents. Cummings’ release from jail would allow her access to the missing documents or let her discuss what she knows about the documents with others, the prosecutor said.

But her attorney said federal investigators did not monitor Cummings’ activities for two years after the investigation began. Three years after the investigation started, Cummings was indicted, arrested and ordered held as a threat to national security.

“For them to come forward now and say she’s a danger just doesn’t make sense,” Phelps said outside the courtroom.

In legal briefs prepared for Monday’s hearing, Hicks said Cummings gave details of the case to another woman being held in jail who became an FBI informant.

The defense attorney said the woman, being held on drug-related charges, learned most of those details from published news accounts of the case.

But Hicks said the informant gave the FBI specific information that he suggested was credible and not previously divulged in media accounts.

The informant provided details about hearing Cummings discuss “blue-covered books, pictures of guns and submachine guns, scientific literature, possibly information on how to build a bomb and military formulas,” Hicks said in his legal brief.

Phelps argued that the informant, who has been convicted of crimes involving dishonesty, was not prosecuted for a half-dozen felonies after she provided the information. The informant had little or no credibility, Phelps argued, and the judge agreed.

Since the informant came forward several months ago, Cummings has been held in solitary confinement and gets out only 20 minutes a day, Phelps said. “She’s been under tremendous stress,” he said.