SENTENCES IMPOSED:

Whyte, Townsend, Casperson and Mohan pleaded guilty to violations of the Export Administration Act and money laundering statutes. Malhotra, who assisted in the transfer of funds from Mohan to Casperson through his New York bank account, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of violating U.S. tax law. The following sentences were imposed:

David Whyte -- 1 year in jail and 2 years' probation, and forfeiture of seized controlled commodities

John Townsend -- 2 years in jail, 2 years' probation

Robert Casperson 4 months in a work release program, 2 years' probation

Sham Lal Malhotra -- 1 year probation

Shiv Mohan Mukkar -- 2 years and 9 months in jail, $1.5 million fine

CONCLUSION:

The export enforcement system works. Export control cases are very complicated and require considerable time to investigate and to prosecute. Once the initial information is uncovered, there is a dedicated corps of professional law enforcement people ready to do whatever is necessary to prosecute the case, criminally, administratively, or both.

I thank the subcommittee again, for the opportunity to make a presentation on export enforcement. We believe that the cases we have discussed today demonstrate that Commerce is fulfilling its statutory mandate to enforce the EAA.

Freight Rates for 25 units at 120lbs. ea 3,000lbs. tota

Mr. ANTHONY. Thank you very much.

Mr. Sike, you do not have a statement, do you, or Mr. Hobbs? Mr. SIKE. No, sir.

Mr. ANTHONY. Ms. Moore, you are recognized.

STATEMENT OF PORTIA R. MOORE, ATTORNEY, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. (FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON STATE)

Ms. MOORE. Thank you. I am Portia Moore, an attorney in private practice with the law firm of Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco. Prior to becoming a partner with Morrison & Foerster, I worked for 4 years as a criminal assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington in Seattle, Wash. I was the prosecutor who was assigned the primary responsibility for the C-TEK investigation. I was involved in the investigation from the very early stages, from drafting the first search warrant in the case forward.

I have listened with great interest today to your questions to the various witnesses here as to what Congress can do to strengthen the export enforcement laws. As someone who is responsible for prosecuting a fairly significant export violation case, I was often frustrated and discouraged by the ease in which people could divert technology from the United States and by the lack of teeth in our export enforcement laws. I have identified five areas where I believe improvements are warranted, and I would like to very basically and briefly share those areas with you now.

First and foremost as a prosecutor, I was stunned and perhaps appalled at what I considered inadequate sentencing provisions by the Export Enforcement Act. Although in the Mohan case the charge was, and I believe that we would have successfully proved that the equipment at issue destined for Russia, the EAA afforded a maximum sentence of only 10 years imprisonment for this crime. When compared to sentences for other Federal crimes, 10 years is extremely light, indeed. Bank robbery, passing forged money, making false statements to a banking institution all carry higher penalties than the penalty for violating national security concerns. Significantly, other crimes which impact on national security carry much greater prison terms. For example, 18 U.S.C. section. 794(a), which makes it a crime to deliver information related to our national defense to aid a foreign government carries a penalty of death, imprisonment for any term of years, or imprisonment for life.

There are a number of practical reasons why I believe Congress should consider increasing the penalties. The first and foremost reason why the penalties should be increased, the criminal penalties should be increased, is to convey a strong message to the criminals involved in these crimes, but, more importantly, to the judges who are hearing them, that we consider this very serious and that we consider these crimes very dangerous.

In the Mohan case, I was repeatedly confronted with the attitude, from both the judicial officer in Buffalo where we had an initial detention hearing and the judges in Seattle, that this was just not a crime of that serious a nature. And I was confronted with