A Russian-born chief executive officer who pleaded guilty to procuring millions of dollars of sophisticated microelectronics for Russia, including warfare defense systems used in fighter jets, wants to get one thing straight: He’s not a spy, but an immigrant who loves America.
“I fear you don’t know me,” Alexander Fishenko said in an open letter to a federal judge in Brooklyn ahead of his sentencing Thursday. “I fear that you have this image of me as some kind of a secret agent.”
“I love this country!” he wrote. “The absolute furthest thing from my mind was being a spy for Russia.”
By claiming to be a manufacturer, Fishenko’s Arc Electronics duped companies including Texas Instruments, Xilinx and Toshiba to sell it sensitive electronic components, some of which were funneled to the Russian military, prosecutors said. Fishenko pleaded guilty in September to charges that included conspiracy, acting as an unregistered agent of the Russian government and illegal export of microelectronics.
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Fishenko said he started his company with “honorable” intentions and attributed his downfall to entering “the wrong business at the wrong time.” He said he lacked the expertise to deal with the export of sophisticated electronics.
“Yes, I committed crimes, but I never, ever did so with the intention of hurting this country,” he said. He said he spent the last 3 1/2 years at a federal jail in Brooklyn teaching yoga, art and English to his fellow inmates and received commendations from prison officials for his efforts.
Fishenko led a conspiracy to obtain advanced, cutting-edge electronics from manufacturers and suppliers in the U.S. to export them to Russia and evade government controls, according to U.S. prosecutors. The items included microprocessors which are frequently used in military systems, missile-guidance systems and detonation triggers.
He also helped the Russian military get a type of radar installed in the nose of a fighter jet, such as a MiG, to aim its weapons system at multiple targets, according to prosecutors.
“These are all items that the Russian military were desperate to procure” Brooklyn Assistant U.S. Attorney Una Dean said, because Russia was more than 10 years behind the United States in the technology.
The technology companies that were allegedly duped weren’t charged with any crimes.
Three former employees of Arc Electronics were convicted last year after a trial while four others pleaded guilty to being part of the scheme.