Brian Patrick Regan

Brian Patrick Regan is a former master sergeant in the United States Air Force who was convicted of offering to sell secret information to foreign governments.

From July 1995 to August 2000 Regan worked as a USAF assignee at the National Reconnaissance Office in Chantilly, Virginia, and was a signals intelligence specialist. In October 2000 he was hired by TRW, but brought back to NRO and monitored. In 1999 he had begun downloading data from Intelink, and in total removed 15,000 pages, CD-ROMs and video tapes from NRO. According to prosecutors he had credit card debts of $117,000, and wrote a letter to Saddam Hussein offering to sell intelligence material for $13 million. He also made similar offers to Libya and China.

In August 2001, Regan was arrested by the FBI at Dulles International Airport, preparing to board a flight to Zürich. He was carrying classified documents and contact information for Iraqi, Libyan, and Chinese embassies in Switzerland. His trial began in January 2003, and prosecutors sought the death penalty (the first time it would have been used for espionage since Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed by electric chair in 1953). The following month, he was found guilty on two counts of attempted espionage and one of gathering national defense information, but the jury declined to impose the death penalty. Instead, he was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole in March of that year. He is currently incarcerated at the U.S. Penitentiary in Lee County, Virginia.

Trivia

 * Comedian Brian Regan made a joke referencing their shared name.