14 DAY TRIAL // A former CIA agent imprisoned since 1997 for spying for Russia, received a new 8-year sentence after sending his son around the world to collect money owed to him by foreign intelligence agencies.
Harold Nicholson, 59, aka "Batman," worked 16 years as an agent for the CIA. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison in 1997 after pleading guilty to espionage charges.
Nicholson admitted selling the identity of CIA operatives in Moscow and other classified documents to Russian intelligence services in exchange for a total of $300,000.
The FBI claimed at the time that he sold "documents, photographic negatives and information relating to the national defense of the United States, with the intent and reason to believe that the same would be used to the injury of the United States and to the advantage of the Russian Federation."
Scheduled to be released in 2017, at the age 66, Nicholson instructed the youngest of his three sons, Nathan Nicholson, to collect money owed to him by the Russians.
Nathan Nicholson flew to various countries around the world and returned with tens of thousands of dollars which he distributed to family members.
Authorities said that when Nicholson came back from Peru, he carried a notebook with coded instructions on how to contact Russian agents in the future.
He was arrested and charged with espionage-related offenses in 2009, but only received five years of probation after he agreed to cooperate with authorities in his father's case.
Harold Nicholson pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit international money laundering and conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government. Giving his new sentence, he will not be eligible to leave prison until 2025.
"Harold Nicholson betrayed his country, and he betrayed his family — and stooped so low as to involve his son in his corrupt scheme to collect money for his spying," said Oregon U.S. Attorney Dwight C. Holton.