Wife of LANL Scientist Sentenced for Role in Espionage Case

The wife of a Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist was sentenced to one year and a day in prison in connection with her role in an espionage plot. According to the Albuquerque Journal, Marjorie Roxby Mascheroni, 71, was sentenced yesterday, receiving a lighter sentence than she could have. Like her husband, Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni, who worked at LANL’s famed X Division, Marjorie Mascheroni worked at the lab as a technical writer, and last year she pleaded guilty to conspiring with her husband to convey Restricted Data to an undercover FBI agent and making false statements to the FBI in October of 2009. She could’ve received up to 14 years in prison, though prosecutors asked for her to be imprisoned for two years. Leo Mascheroni is alleged to have claimed that he could “deliver” a nuclear weapon to Venezuela in exchange for $793,000 during an undercover operation by the FBI. He is facing 24 and 66 months in prison after pleading guilty last year to converting government property, making false statements, communicating Restricted Data, and retaining national defense information.