Cambridge Russian Spies In N.Y. For Arraignment

Cambridge residents Donald H. Heathfield and Tracey L. A. Foley are being held in New York, along with the other eight defendants, to await their arraignment later this afternoon.

During a surprise hearing in court yesterday morning, Heathfield and Foley waived their right to fight a transfer to New York for further legal proceedings.

"My client would like to go to New York to face the charges which are pending against them there. He’d like to do that as fast as he can," said Peter Krupp, Heathfield’s lawyer, to Marianne B. Bowler, the magistrate judge who presided over the hearing at the U.S. District Court in Boston.

The two defendants, who will be prosecuted in a federal court in Manhattan, are not contesting their purported identities as spies, nor are they admitting to the allegations, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney John T. McNeil.

Heathfield, a master's in public administration alumnus from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in 2000, and his wife were arrested at their Trowbridge Street home in Cambridge last Sunday. The duo was charged with conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Heathfield allegedly met with a U.S. government official involved with nuclear weapons research and was tasked with assembling data on U.S. foreign policy.

The decision to waive rights to fight the transfer comes amidst news of possible negotiations of a spy swap between the United States and Russia. The Russian spy suspects in the U.S. that were arrested last week could be traded for a group of foreigners being held in Russia.

According to The New York Times, the federal government is also in talks with the lawyers of the 10 defendants to develop a resolution that would allow the defendants quick guilty pleas with potentially fewer charges or lesser penalties.

The resolution would save the United States from entering protracted trials during which intelligence information could be exposed, the Times reported.

—Staff writer Xi Yu can be reached at xyu@college.harvard.edu.