Navy Officer Heads To Prison For Six Years In Bizarre Romance Scandal

Daily Caller ^ | June 3, 2017 | Jonah Bennett

[AndyJackson]

Naval officer Lt. Cmdr. Edward C. Lin will serve six years in prison for mishandling classified information in an attempt to impress women.

As part of a plea deal, Lin will only have to serve six years instead of the nine that Judge Cmdr. Robert Monahan sentenced him to Friday, and since he’s already spent 646 days in prison, he effectively has only four years left of confinement, The Virginian-Pilot reports.

He will also be dismissed from the Navy and lose all pay allowance.

Prosecutors wanted 12 years and the defense hoped to bring down the sentence to 1.5 years in prison. Lin pleaded guilty in May mishandling classified information and not reporting foreign contacts relating to his disclosure of secrets to a Taiwanese woman working for a political party and an undercover female FBI agent. He thought the agent, known as Katherine Wu, was a teacher in the middle of a turbulent marriage and decided to share classified info with her in August and September 2015 to impress her.

After an investigation beginning in January 2014, authorities arrested him in September 2015 as he was on his way to meet a woman in China. The investigation found that Lin did not report ties to Taiwanese naval officers or his relationships with Chinese women. He met one of the women at a massage parlor in Honolulu.

“I get physically ill when I think about the damage I could have caused from my actions,” Lin said Friday. “I’m exhausted and broken in spirit. The best thing I can do is serve as a cautionary tale to others.”

The end result of the case is somewhat different from what was first reported by media outlets. Rather than being an international spy case, it turns out that Lin was not intentionally handing over secrets to foreign governments.

“While this case didn’t turn out to be related to foreign intelligence — not really a ‘spy’ case — the sentence sends a strong message to the force about taking care to safeguard classified and sensitive information,” Rob Bracknell, a Marine veteran and military lawyer, told USNI News.

“It also invites comparison to other more high profile classified and sensitive information cases in Washington, and it may be fair criticism that senior folks are handled with kid gloves compared to rank and file personnel,” Bracknell added.

While in the Navy, Lin served as department head for one of the most secretive units: Special Projects Squadron Two based in Hawaii.

[AndyJackson]

A few things are notable. First, the guy knew better, is contrite about what he did, and is not whining about his fate.

Second, this incident pales in comparison to the damage done by leaks by Clinton and cronies in the Obama administration, but nothing is happening there.

I won't even bother to swear about Comey's stated views about other folks being severely punished for what Hillary did.

[bigbob]

I guess his name is not Petraeus, then?

[TBP]

Yet Hitlery skates.

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks so much for your support to this point... I personally apprecaite it...
FReepers, it's time to wrap up this FReep-a-thon.  Lets do it...

President Donald J. Trump and the Free Republic of the United States of America

Ramirez political cartoon: Economic Climate Change LARGE VERSION 06/03/2017: LINK  LINK to regular sized versions of his political cartoons (archive).

Please join the monthlies, an automated and the best way to help support Free Republic.

If you are not opting to join the automated monthly support program, please consider joining the One One Done project.  LINK

FReepers, 84.56% of the Second Quarter FReep-a-thon goal has been met.  Click above and pencil in your donation now.  Please folks, lets end this FReepathon.  Thank you!
...this is a general all-purpose message, and should not be seen as targeting any individual I am responding to...

Just $384.00 to 85.00%

[txrefugee]

So what’s worse, this or Hillary giving hundreds, perhaps thousands of state secrets to Huma to forward to the laptop of an active pedophile? Why are all three of them not heading for at least 15 years in the Club Fed?

[sport]

He should have changed his name to Hillary Clinton right quick. Then he would have been home free.

[CMSMC]

You’re right. There is definitely two sets of standards. While what he did was wrong and he deserves the sentence he received, Hillary’s offenses were considerably worse. When you track who may have had access to her emails with no clearance whatsoever, I shutter.... lawyers, secretaries, copy maintenance folks, who knows? That don’t even count the hostile actors who I’m sure were looking at it. Should be worth a good 30 years.

[AndyJackson]

Could Lin have adopted the Comey defense of Clinton? I was not intentionally divulging classified information to hurt the U.S. I was only trying to impress a girl.

[\/\/ayne]

If he did that as a publicity stunt MSM heads would explode!

[rlmorel]

I got that impression as well.

He was thinking with his other head, which means he wasn’t thinking.

Communist countries have always been particularly skilled at exploiting this human weakness.

[cynwoody]

Who is the lieutenant in the photo?

[Rebelbase]

If only he’d emailed the classified info on a private server he’d have not faced charges.

[BykrBayb]

He was only trying to get screwed. Well, that seems to be working out.

[Nifster]

All true

You forgot to add this guy is a complete idiot

[LucyT]

Hillary walks free tonight.

.

[ConjunctionJunction]

That’s a picture of the guy from 2008. I guess he was a lieutenant then.

[TnTnTn]

You mean Comey found intent to break the laws regarding classified information in this case. Comey and the FBI are a pathetic laughing stock.

[cynwoody]

That’s a picture of the guy from 2008. I guess he was a lieutenant then.

After googling, it appears so. He was speaking at a naturalization ceremony about his experience immigrating from Taiwan when he was 14. His full name is Edward Chieh-Liang Lin.

He doesn't look at all Chinese in that photo. Here he was in 2012 or 2013:

Lin, far left, in the Pentagon during his tour as liaison to Congress

And here's a photo from a story dated last August:

In both of the above, he looks Chinese. Guess it must be the hat and the angle.

[PGR88]

As a submariner, wanted to impress women by telling them all about his knowledge of long, hard tubes filled with seamen

[Candor7]

Lt. Cmdr Lin, deep-sixed by the pu$$y factor.

He’ll have to make do with magazines and the local prison gorilla .

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/04/11/the-fall-of-edward-lin-the-navy-pilot-accused-of-espionage-and-patronizing-a-prostitute/?utm_term=.a3d7c83105dc