Updated: at 6:15 p.m to include a statement from the defense attorney.
A Plano businessman who conspired to smuggle radiation-protected microchips used in space exploration to China and Russia was sentenced Wednesday to 46 months in federal prison, officials said.
Peter A. Zuccarelli, 62, pleaded guilty in August to conspiracy to smuggle goods out of the U.S. and to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
Zuccarelli's eyeglass lens coating companies were mired in financial troubles when prosecutors say he tried to profit from the scheme, according to public records.
U.S. District Judge Amos L. Mazzant III in Sherman also ordered Zuccarelli to pay a $50,000 fine.
"The United States rightfully restricts, as a national security concern, the exportation of technological equipment that can, if not controlled, be put to improper use," said Alan R. Jackson, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas. "This prosecution confirms the resolve of the Eastern District of Texas...to enforce those restrictions for the safety of our citizens."
His attorney, Heather Barbieri, said she is disappointed with the outcome and that her client's family is heartbroken.
"He's been cooperating with the agents since the very beginning, and will continue to help any way he can," she said. "Thankfully, he has a loving family that supports him, and they look forward to rebuilding their lives together after he is released."
Zuccarelli used one of his eyeglass lens companies, American Coating Technologies, to buy the microchips from two American manufacturers, according to the charging document filed by the U.S. attorney's office.
Zuccarelli then shipped the chips, known as "radiation hardened integrated circuits" but mislabeled as "touch screen parts," from his Carrollton company to customers in China and Russia, federal court records said.
The microchips are used in satellites and space probes but also have military uses, such as guiding ballistic missiles. As a result, their export is strictly controlled and the chips can't be sold to certain countries like China. Zuccarelli's shipments did not have required export licenses from the U.S. Department of Commerce, according to the U.S. attorney.
The Zuccarelli case is one of a growing number in which American citizens and foreign nationals have smuggled U.S. space technology to China especially, but also to Russia. The smuggling rings have surfaced because of efforts by China and Russia to obtain special microchips that they have not been able to engineer.
A Los Angeles woman named Si Chen was arrested in May, for example, and charged in connection with a scheme to smuggle U.S. space communications technology to her native China.
China and Russia have been trying to expand their space exploration capabilities and catch up to the U.S. after several failed attempts. China announced in June that it was ramping up its space program with the launch of four new probes within the next four years. China also is planning a Mars mission for 2020. Technical problems thwarted a Mars probe that China launched atop a Russian spacecraft in 2011.
Around that time, the FBI broke up a ring of Russian agents that was smuggling microchips out of the U.S. that ended up inside Russian fighter jets and missiles.
An unnamed Pakistan native who is a U.S. citizen is referenced in federal records as a co-conspirator in the scheme, which ran from June 2015 to March 2016.
Zuccarelli's accomplice found customers who wanted to buy the microchips for use in China's and Russia's space programs and took their orders, the charging document alleges.
The co-conspirator arranged for $1.5 million to be deposited in a bank account controlled by Zuccarelli so he could use the money to buy the American microchips for the Chinese and Russian customers, the charging document says. Zuccarelli bought the microchips after falsely certifying that his company was the "end user."
The co-conspirator told Zuccarelli to "create false paperwork and to make false statements in an attempt to hide the conspiracy" from U.S. officials, the charging document says.
When the microchips arrived, Zuccarelli repackaged them before shipping them to China and Russia, authorities said.
