Ex-Los Alamos scientist gets 5 years in nuclear spy sting

Marjorie Roxby Mascheroni (center) leaves the federal courthouse in Albuquerque with her attorneys in 2010. Marjorie Roxby Mascheroni (center) leaves the federal courthouse in Albuquerque with her attorneys in 2010. Photo: Susan Montoya Bryan / Associated Press Photo: Susan Montoya Bryan / Associated Press Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Ex-Los Alamos scientist gets 5 years in nuclear spy sting 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

ALBUQUERQUE — A former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist told an undercover FBI agent he could build 40 nuclear weapons for Venezuela in 10 years and design a bomb targeted for New York City.

In audio recordings played Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque, Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni tells an agent posing as a Venezuelan official that the bombs would prevent the United States from invading the socialist South American country.

Mascheroni said his New York bomb wouldn’t kill anyone but would disable the city’s electrical system and help Venezuela become a nuclear superpower.

The 79-year-old Mascheroni was sentenced Wednesday to five years in federal prison after pleading guilty in 2013 to offering to help develop nuclear weapons for Venezuela through dealings with the undercover agent.

Mascheroni, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Argentina, faced up to 5½ years in prison and 10 years of supervised release at his sentencing before a federal judge in Albuquerque. His wife, Marjorie Roxby Mascheroni, received a year and a day in prison for conspiring with her husband to sell nuclear secrets.

The U.S. government is not alleging Venezuela sought U.S. secrets.

Before his indictment, Mascheroni was under investigation for about a year. The FBI had seized computers, letters, photographs, books and cell phones from the couple’s Los Alamos home.

Mascheroni said he believed the U.S. government was wrongly targeting him as a spy and denied the accusations.

The scientist said he approached Venezuela after the United States rejected his theories that a hydrogen-fluoride laser could produce nuclear energy.

According to a 22-count indictment, Mascheroni told the undercover agent that he could help Venezuela develop a nuclear bomb within 10 years and that the South American country would use a secret, underground nuclear reactor to produce and enrich plutonium as well as an open, aboveground reactor to produce nuclear energy.

Mascheroni worked in the nuclear weapons design division at the Los Alamos lab from 1979 until he was laid off in 1988. His wife, a technical writer, worked there between 1981 and 2010.

He said he was motivated by his belief in cleaner, less expensive and more reliable nuclear weapons and power. He began approaching other countries after his ideas were rejected by the lab and, later, congressional staffers.