CIA Agent Spied For Russia: Needed Money For Divorce And Child Custody

PORTLAND, Ore. — The highest-ranking CIA officer ever convicted of espionage was expected to plead guilty to additional charges that he tried to collect money from old contacts in Russia while in prison, a newspaper reported Thursday.

Attorneys for Harold "Jim" Nicholson filed notice Wednesday that the 59-year-old native of Oregon will plead guilty to a federal indictment accusing him of conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government and laundering money, The Oregonian newspaper said.

The government accused Nicholson of orchestrating a plot to use his son to sneak messages from a federal prison in Oregon to Russian intelligence officials and collect a "pension" for his illicit service to Russia in the 1990s.

If found guilty of collecting the proceeds, Jim Nicholson would become the first U.S. intelligence officer convicted twice of betraying his country.

Nicknamed "Batman" early in his 16-year career with the CIA, Nicholson has been kept in a lockdown unit known to inmates as the "hole."

A guilty plea by the former spy would spare his 26-year-old son, Nathan Nicholson, from having to testify against his father at a trial that was set to begin Monday.

Records show Jim Nicholson intends to plead guilty Monday before U.S. District Judge Anna Brown.

Nathan Nicholson pleaded guilty last year to his role in the plot. The government has said he traveled on three continents to collect payments from Russian officials still indebted to his father for his past espionage.

Federal prosecutors allege Jim Nicholson passed crumpled notes to Nathan during their visits at the medium-security prison at Sheridan instructing him to carry them to officials with the Russian Federation.