A Chinese-born U.S. Navy sailor betrayed the U.S. on behalf of his birth nation by selling military secrets to a Chinese spy while assigned to a San Diego-based warship, a federal prosecutor told a jury Tuesday during opening statements of the sailor’s espionage trial in San Diego federal court.
Jinchao “Patrick” Wei, 25, is accused of seven counts of conspiracy, espionage and charges related to unlawfully sending defense information to a foreign government. Federal prosecutors also contend that Wei, who became a naturalized U.S. citizen while serving in the Navy, committed naturalization fraud by not disclosing the alleged espionage during a citizenship interview.
Wei’s attorney told the jury that he and his mother came to the U.S. in 2016 in part because of their opposition to the Chinese government and that Wei held no loyalty to China. The defense attorney said that while Wei’s actions were “regrettable, stupid and misguided,” he did not believe that the information he was sharing with an online contact was important or secret.
Federal agents arrested Wei two years ago when he showed up for work one August morning at Naval Base San Diego. At the time, Wei was a petty officer who held a security clearance and worked as a machinist’s mate aboard the USS Essex, an amphibious assault ship. By the time federal agents arrested Wei, they had bugged his apartment, tapped his phone and spent more than six months listening in on his allegedly incriminating conversations, according to prosecutors.
“This is quite obviously (expletive) espionage,” Wei allegedly told another Navy sailor in February 2022 after someone he met on a Chinese social media site began asking him for information about the Navy.
Assistant U.S. Attorney John Parmley began his opening statement Tuesday quoting that line and finished by telling jurors that at the end of the trial, they will “come to the same conclusion as the defendant in 2022 — this is quite obviously espionage.”
But defense attorney Sean Jones told the jury that Parmley had left out important context about that conversation, saying that after Wei had correctly identified the social media request as espionage, he had told his fellow sailor “and that’s why I won’t do it.”
Wei moved with his mother from China to Wisconsin in 2016, joined the Navy in July 2021 and reported to the Essex in March 2022, according to prosecutors and his Navy service record
As a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship, the Essex resembles a small aircraft carrier that can carry more than 1,000 sailors and 1,500 Marines, allowing the U.S. to rapidly deploy troops in regions such as the Persian Gulf and South China Sea.
Parmley told the jury that China is “desperately trying” to keep up with U.S. technology while building its own similar class of amphibious assault ships.
A special agent from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service who was called as the first witness Tuesday said the leak of information about U.S. Navy ships, even basic information, “could jeopardize (the U.S. military’s) advantage” and reveal vulnerabilities that an enemy could exploit.
“If we lose superiority, we risk losing lives on the battlefield,” NCIS Special Agent Chris Christian testified.
Prosecutors contend that a Chinese intelligence officer began recruiting Wei over social media in February 2022, initially posing as a naval enthusiast who worked for the state-owned China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation. The intelligence officer allegedly asked Wei to send him photos, videos and other documents concerning U.S. Navy ships and their systems.
Wei, who had received Naval counterintelligence and insider threat training just days earlier, strongly suspected that his new social media acquaintance was a Chinese spy, prosecutors said.
Between March 2022 and Wei’s arrest in August 2023, the spy allegedly paid Wei thousands of dollars in exchange for photographs and videos of the Essex, information about the location of various Navy ships and details about the Essex’s defensive weapons, according to prosecutors. Wei also allegedly sent his spy handler thousands of pages of technical and operational information about Navy warships that he took from a restricted Navy computer system.
“In one of his larger thefts of U.S. Navy data, Wei sold the (intelligence officer) at least 30 technical and operating manuals about U.S. Navy systems,” prosecutors wrote in a trial brief. “These manuals contained export control warnings and detailed the operations of multiple systems aboard the Essex and similar ships, including power, steering, weapons control, aircraft and deck elevators, as well as damage and casualty controls.”
Jones, Wei’s defense attorney, told the jury that prosecutors were overstating the secrecy of the documents that he shared, which he said can be found online. Jones also said that prosecutors were wrongly painting Wei as someone of importance with access to sensitive secrets.
In reality, Jones told the jury, his client spent most days sanding and painting the Essex.
Parmely told the jury that during trial, they’ll hear how federal agents first caught wind of Wei’s alleged corruption and later installed a court-approved listening device in his apartment. Parmley also hinted at a Hollywood-like incident when FBI agents created a ruse and “separated (Wei) from his phone during work” in order to access the device, download its data and then quickly return it to him before he suspected an intrusion.
Jones said that despite the federal agents spending “months and months” surveilling his client, the investigators and prosecutors had failed to produce solid evidence that Wei intended to betray the U.S. for the benefit of China.
“Intent is everything,” Jones told the jury. “They cannot prove intent.”
Jones acknowledged that Wei accepted money, but said his client never asked for it nor agreed to complete specific tasks in exchange for specific payments.
Wei’s arrest in 2023 came the same day the U.S. Department of Justice also announced the arrest and indictment of another Chinese-born U.S. Navy sailor, Wenheng “Thomas” Zhao. The DOJ said Zhao, who was arrested at a Naval base in Ventura County, was also a naturalized U.S. citizen suspected of spying for China, though officials never said if the cases were related.
Zhao eventually admitted to accepting nearly $15,000 in bribes for sending sensitive but unclassified military information to his Chinese handler. A federal judge sentenced him to two years and three months in prison on bribery and conspiracy charges.
Wei’s trial comes two months after the DOJ announced charges against two alleged Chinese spies in the U.S. who were accused of taking photographs of a naval base and participating in efforts to recruit U.S. military members who they thought might be open to working for Chinese intelligence.
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