A law firm representing alleged spy Lt. Cmdr. Edward Chieh-Liang Lin said he is innocent of the charges, while his family said separately that the Navy officer they know as “Eddy” is “no spy for Taiwan or any other foreign country.”

Lin, 39, a Taiwanese native who was naturalized as an American citizen, has been in custody at the Naval Consolidated Brig in Chesapeake, Va., since his arrest on Sept. 11 at Honolulu Airport by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, according to his family and U.S. officials.

A redacted charge sheet accuses the former Marine Corps Base Hawaii officer with two specifications of espionage for allegedly communicating secret information relating to national defense to a representative of a foreign government.

A government prosecutor, meanwhile, alleged at an April 8 hearing that Lin confessed to passing “secret” information, while his attorney maintained that the government entrapped Lin and that much of the information was publicly available, U.S. Naval Institute News reported.

The Navy flight officer is suspected of aiding Taiwan, an official previously said, but media reports also have referenced China. Lin was arrested in Honolulu as he attempted to fly to either China or Taiwan in September, a U.S. official said.

Although the charge sheet lists Lin’s unit as the Patrol and Reconnaissance Group in Norfolk, Va., that actually is the higher headquarters for his unit at the time of his arrest, the highly secretive Special Projects Patrol Squadron 2 (VPU-2) “Wizards” at Kaneohe Bay.

The group, which flies specially modified spy planes, had been known to change P-3 Orion aircraft paint schemes and identifying numbers to blend in with other Navy planes, and the case raises complications over the potential revelation of top secret information at a possible court-martial trial.

Following the release of an Article 32 preliminary hearing officer’s report, Tully Rinckey PLLC attorney Larry Youngner said last week in a statement that Lin “is innocent of espionage, innocent of failing to follow lawful orders (and) innocent of false official statements.” The law firm is based in Albany, N.Y.

While U.S. Fleet Forces commander Adm. Phil Davidson decides whether to proceed to trial, Youngner said, “It is our assessment that Lt. Cmdr. Lin’s case is best handled administratively in a timely manner at the lowest appropriate level.” That would mean commander review and no court-martial. There is no deadline tied to Davidson’s decision.

“Should Lt. Cmdr. Lin’s case be referred to a court-martial, we request a speedy trial on the merits and look forward to defending Lt. Cmdr. Lin, who has honorably served the United States, to include combat tours, since 1998,” Youngner said.

Lin became the target of a sting operation, with an informant who spoke Mandarin Chinese providing information to the government, the Washington Post reported.

Lin’s family members said on bringeddyhome.org, a website through which they are trying to raise legal funds, that the government imprisoned “Eddy” for more than two months before preferring court-martial charges. The Tully Rinckey law firm confirmed the website’s authenticity, but said it had nothing to do with it.

The government “took its time to create a conventional, easy-to-digest, sensationalized tale of espionage, misdirection and sexual perversion,” the family said. “That’s not the Eddy we know and love.”

The officer additionally was charged with patronizing a prostitute and adultery, five specifications of communicating defense information that could be used to injure the United States and three specifications of making a false official statement relating to foreign travel.

The government has peddled a narrative “fit for a spy novel — espionage, falsification of an official document, failure to report a foreign contact,” Lin’s family said.

NCIS agents obtained search warrants for Lin’s residence at the Kaneohe Bay Marine Corps base and found a notebook with classified information, Naval Institute News said.

Born in Taiwan, Lin became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1998. He was assigned to U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor from April 13, 2007, to Feb. 16, 2009, according to his biography.

A 2008 Navy story said Lin, then a lieutenant, spoke at a naturalization ceremony at U.S. District Court in Honolulu about how he was 14 years old when his family left Taiwan.

“I always dreamt about coming to America, the ‘promised land,’” the officer was quoted as saying at the ceremony. “I grew up believing that all roads in America lead to Disneyland.”

Just because Lin was born in Taiwan and still has relatives there, that should not be taken as evidence that he was willing to betray his new country, the family said on the website.

“Yes, Eddy is an immigrant, (but) so are thousands of immigrants who answered the call of duty and signed up to serve and protect their country,” the Lin family said.

The government has characterized the matter as a “national security” case that allows it to control information release, they said. Much of the evidence has been categorized as classified. The family claims that initially, Navy officials told them the government wanted to resolve the case quickly and quietly.

Lin was attached to the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in 2009-10 and was with Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron 1 (VQ-1), the “World Watchers” flying the EP-3 signals intelligence and reconnaissance aircraft out of Whidbey Island, Wash., from 2004 to 2007.

“Eddy loves Hawaii and hopes to make the island state his permanent home one day,” the family said in an email to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “He often said Hawaii is that one place where he feels at home and at ease.”

The family also had a message for Lin’s fellow service members: “To those who served with him, who supervised him, who knew him by reputation, Eddy is still that convivial, genuine and reliable person you know. Eddy hasn’t changed, nor should your opinion about him.”