United States v. Michael Tobias

Michael Tobias was convicted of espionage and theft of government property. Tobias appeals, claiming that the trial court erred by denying his motion for judgment of acquittal, refusing to order the production of certain grand jury records, and denying his motion for additional disclosures regarding electronic surveillance. We affirm.

I. FACTS

On August 12, 1984, Secret Service Special Agent Ronald Luzania received a telephone call from an unidentified caller. The caller claimed to have cards with holes punched in them, stamped “TOP SECRET, CRYPTO”, which he believed belonged to the Navy. He claimed that a foreign party had expressed interest in the cards and had offered to pay $100,000 for them. The caller stated that on account of his sense of patriotism he intended not to go through with the sale to the foreign authorities and instead wanted to sell the cards to the government.

The caller first offered to exchange the cards in his possession for money through a dead drop arrangement at a specified location. This offer was not accepted. Later the caller told Agent Luzania that if he went to a certain school he would find an envelope containing additional information under a…