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After an intensive forensic examination of Lee's office computer, it was determined that he had backed up his work files, which were not classified at the time, onto tapes, and had also transferred the files from a system used for processing classified data onto another, also highly secure, system designated for unclassified data. With this in hand, the government then retroactively redesignated the data Lee had copied, changing it from its former designation of PARD (Protect As Restricted Data) to a new designation of Secret, giving them the crime they needed for a formal charge. Lee was arrested in December 1999 but freed in August 2000 after he accepted a plea bargain from the federal government.

Wen Ho Lee pled guilty to one felony count of improperly downloading classified data. In return, the government released him from jail and dropped the other 58 counts of illegally downloading classified data from the computers at the Los Alamos weapons lab. The judge assigned to hear the case apologized for Lee's nine months of incarceration.

Born in Nantou, Taiwan, Lee got his B.S. in mechanical engineering from Cheng Kung University . He received a Ph.D from Texas A&M University in 1969.

See also: Taiwanese AmericanA Taiwanese American is an American of Taiwanese ancestry. Whether Taiwanese Americans also count as Chinese Americans, along with the status of Taiwan is a controversial issue especially among immigrants from Taiwan themselves. Of those originating from

1 External link

• http://www.wenholee.org

2 Further reading

• Wen Ho Lee and Helen Zia , My Country Versus Me: The First-Hand Account by the Los Alamos Scientist Who Was Falsely Accused of Being a Spy, Hyperion, 2003, BooksEnthsiast.com.
• Dan Stober and Ian Hoffman, A Convenient Spy: Wen Ho Lee and the Politics of Nuclear Espionage, Simon & Schuster, 2002, BooksEnthsiast.com.