I GOOGLED THIS ARTICLE BELOW ABOUT THE REAL LIFE JENNINGS FAMILY:
Accused Russian spies lived deep under cover in Montclair
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on June 28, 2010 at 9:28 PM, updated June 29, 2010 at 1:34 PM
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Star-Ledger fileTen people, including two from Montclair, have been arrested for allegedly serving as secret agents of the Russian government with the goal of penetrating U.S. government policymaking circles, the Justice Department announced today. L-R: Judge Ronald Ellis, Anna Chapman, Vicki Pelael, Cynthia Murphy, Richard Murphy (red shirt), Juan lazaro.
MONTCLAIR — He claimed to be from Philadelphia. She told of being a native New Yorker. Together they lived in New Jersey with two young daughters on a leafy street in Montclair, hoping to look like any other suburban couple living the American dream, authorities said.
But in truth, authorities say, Richard and Cynthia Murphy were highly trained spies from Russia. They encoded messages with invisible ink, brushed past co-conspirators in train stations to hand off computer memory sticks and may have even faked their marriage for the sake of gathering intelligence for Moscow, authorities said.
"You were sent to the USA for long-term service trip. Your education, bank account, car, house … all these serve one goal: fulfill your mission," the Murphys were told in a message from Russia by the contemporary equivalent of the K.G.B., according to a criminal complaint unsealed today in federal court in Manhattan.
The "Murphys" were arrested Sunday at their home in Montclair and charged along with nine others from three states in what authorities have described as a sweeping strike against a "deep cover" espionage network. It is unclear how much information the suspects successfully gathered, but authorities said they went to elaborate lengths to remain undercover for years.
The charging documents read like the pages of a Tom Clancy thriller, telling of agents spending years developing the story lines of their fake identities — or legends — to blend into American society. They often operated in pairs, passing themselves off as husband and wife at their posts in New Jersey, Boston, New York and Virginia. Some, authorities say, were assigned by Moscow to have children to complete the facade.
Their ultimate goal was to recruit sources who could infiltrate U.S. policy-making and financial circles. And their orders came directly from Russia, authorities said.
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Accused Russian spies in N.J. used high-tech art of steganography to write, pass messages
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Accused Russian spies appeared to be a typical American family in Montclair
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Montclair couple charged with espionage
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Read the criminal complaint - page 1
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Read the criminal complaint - page 2
In 2009, for instance, the foreign intelligence service in Moscow, or S.V.R, asked the Murphys to learn details of the White House’s latest position on an arms-reduction treaty, Afghanistan and Iran’s nuclear program to prepare for President Obama’s pending visit to Russia, authorities said.
"Try to outline their views and most important Obama’s goals which he expects to achieve during summit in July and how does his team plan to do it," Moscow ordered, according to the documents.
TARGET
To gather intelligence, the suspects targeted political fund raisers, congressional staffers, major think tanks, academics and others with insider access, authorities said. But the agents were wary of trying to penetrate the government themselves, nervous their cover stories may not survive the scrutiny of a background check.
To communicate with Moscow, they used "steganography" to encrypt messages into websites, wireless laptop computers and fired coded bursts of data via short-wave radio transmitter, authorities said.
"The evidence here is overwhelming. It is simple. It is strong," Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Farbiarz said during a hearing in Manhattan for the Murphys and three other suspects, who were held without bail.
The 11 suspects are charged with conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Nine, including the Murphys, are also charged with with money laundering conspiracy, which carries a 20-year maximum prison term.
The charges come four days after President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met in Washington and declared they had "reset" their adversarial relationship.
The probe began as early as 2000, when authorities began watching the alleged spies as they dined in New York restaurants, traded computer files wirelessly in a Times Square Starbucks, swapped bags in a Queens train station and met on benches in Central Park and Brooklyn.
"Excuse me, but did we meet in Bangkok in April last year?" was one code phrased they used to identify each other as fellow spies.
The correct reply: "I don’t know about April, but I was in Thailand in May of that year."
LIVING IN NJ
The Murphys came to the United States in the mid-1990s, living first in a Hoboken apartment. In fall of 2008, they moved to a beige two-story colonial with red shutters on Marquette Road in Montclair. Pink flowers line the brick walkway to the front door. A green four-door Honda Civic with a AAA sticker was parked in the driveway tonight.
One neighbor said he believed Richard Murphy was an architect and that Cynthia had just gotten an MBA. Another said she believed Cynthia to be an accountant.
"They’re such a nice couple," said Susan Coke, a real estate agent who handled the $481,000 sale for the home. "I spent a lot of time with them showing them houses. I just hope the FBI got it wrong,"
On several occasions, Moscow found Cynthia Murphy’s work particularly valuable. In 2009, for example, she plied financial contacts in New York to learn details of the prospective global gold market, authorities said. Richard Murphy was not always as connected. In 2004, his wife said he needed to improve his information-collection efforts and suggested he find some contacts with access to the White House.
Several of the Murphys’ neighbors said they had no clue what was going on Sunday night when FBI agents swarmed the house, arrested the couple and led their two young daughters away. The neighborhood, a largely post-war development of modest homes, is known locally as "Fieldstone." It backs onto the 16-acre Alonzo Bonsal Wildlife Preserve on Montclair’s far northern end, near Clifton.
"If there is an ‘Ozzie and Harriet’ road in Montclair, it’s Marquette," said Roberta Baldwin, a real-estate agent. "You couldn’t get more normal. You couldn’t find anything more quiet and demure."
David Rowley, who has lived on Marquette Road for seven years, said he never thought something like this would happen in his neighborhood, but he’s not all that shocked.
"It’s almost like the suburbs are the perfect cover for something like this," he said.
By Joe Ryan and Nic Corbett/The Star-Ledger
