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Attorneys representing a Kapolei couple accused of identity theft — living under the stolen identities of two deceased Texas infants — are asking a federal judge to release them before their trial, maintaining that the government has not proved they are a flight risk or Russian intelligence agents.
A federal grand jury in July returned an indictment charging the pair with conspiring to commit an offense against the United States, making false statements on passport applications, making false statements in application and use of passport, and aggravated identity theft. Both were ordered to be held without bail until their trial on Sept. 26 before U.S. District Judge Leslie E. Kobayashi.
In a motion for revocation of detention order and appeal of detention order, deputy federal public defender Maximilian J. Mizono, the attorney for former U.S. defense contractor and Coast Guard veteran Walter Glenn Primrose, aka Bobby Edward Fort, argued that serious national security cases require that defense counsel may obtain clearance necessary to review evidence.
In the motion, submitted Thursday, Mizono said the lack of such notice from the government in this case “likely means that top-secret security clearance is not required for Mr. Primrose’s representation — as of now — and further demonstrates the unlikelihood that this case involves matters involving national security or defendants who are secret KGB agents and/or Russian spies.”
Attorney Megan Kau, who is representing Primrose’s wife, Gwynn Darle Morrison, aka Julie Lyn Montague, filed a joinder to Mizono’s motion Monday.
A search of the couple’s home turned up, among other items, Polaroid photos that appear to be shot in the 1990s of Primrose and Morrison in a uniform of the KGB, the former spy agency. Morrison’s attorney, Megan Kau, filed a joinder to Mizono’s motion Monday.
Mizono has asserted that if Primrose was actually a Russian spy, the U.S. Department of Justice would have raised the allegation during the couple’s July 28 detention hearing.
“Without outright stating so, the government’s arguments, in tandem with its submission of the photographs, have had the intended effect of portraying Mr. Primrose and his co-
defendant as Russian spies. The government, however, has never alleged that Mr. Primrose is a current KGB agent,” Mizono said in the motion.
Further, he said, the
government “has not stated he is a former KGB agent. It does not allege he is a sleeper agent or a Russian spy. It has never said that he has ties to Russia. It has never stated he has communicated with Russians. It does not even claim he has even travelled to Russia, let alone any other countries previously part of the ‘communist bloc’ of the former U.S.S.R.”
The conspiracy charge the couple is facing is related to the couple’s Aug. 28, 2018, attempt at the Hawaii Army National Guard office in Kapolei to obtain a Military Dependent Identification Card from the U.S. Department of Defense for Morrison in Montague’s name.
In Kau’s joinder, she argued that during the July 28 hearing the government failed to establish other “aliases Morrison has used” despite alluding to them. Additionally, the government did not name the “close associate” who told federal agents she used to live in Romania when it was a Soviet bloc country. “And the government has failed to allege when — if at all — Morrison allegedly lived there,” Kau said in the document.
Also, Kau said, prosecutors have now said that there was only one jacket and hat and that Primrose and Morrison seem to be posing wearing the same uniform, Kau said. “The government has apparently obtained that sole uniform from its owner — neither Primrose nor Morrison.”
During the July 28 hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Rom A. Trader, deputy public defender Craig W. Jerome, representing Primrose, said, “The government has provided almost no evidence, certainly to the court, to support that speculation or that innuendo. Mr. Primrose is not charged with anything beyond what’s in the complaint in this case.”
During that same hearing, assistant U.S. Attorney Wayne A. Myers said it is “unclear what kind of information, if any,” Primrose may have stolen or provided to others in connection with his work with the military and as a civilian with the U.S. Department of Defense. He added, “He certainly had access to military information, and he might be motivated to share that information as part of a bid to flee the United States. So we think the seriousness of the danger to the community also warrants detention.”
Myers said witnesses told federal agents that in the early 1980s Primrose and Morrison left Texas suddenly, allegedly telling family they were entering the witness protection program. Also, Morrison and Primrose allegedly told others they had “changed their names because of legal and financial reasons.”
The pair face up to
17 years in prison if convicted on each count. They were arrested July 22 at their home in Kapolei. A hearing on Mizono’s motion is scheduled for Monday in Kobayashi’s court.
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