Jinchao "Patrick" Wei was sentenced to almost 17 years in prison for selling Navy secrets to China.
Wei, 25, apologized to the court, the Navy and his former shipmates during his sentencing hearing Monday in a San Diego federal courtroom.
"I take full responsibility for my actions," Wei said.
A San Diego jury convicted Wei in August on six counts including espionage, conspiracy to commit espionage and violating the Arms Export Control Act.
Wei was a machinist mate 2nd class about to check onto the amphibious assault ship USS Essex in February 2022 when he was first approached by a Chinese intelligence agent, prosecutors said.
John Parmley, an assistant United States attorney in San Diego, said text messages recovered from Wei's phone show he knew exactly what he was doing.
In the text, Wei told a friend he was "no idiot," and that what the agent asked of him was "quite obviously f------ espionage," court records say.
For more than a year Wei, who had a security clearance, used his access to sensitive information to steal documents for China, prosecutors said.
Through June 2023, Wei sent the Chinese official photos of Navy ships in San Diego and several technical manuals pertaining to U.S. amphibious ships, according to prosecutors. He also gave the official detailed accounts of the locations of various crew spaces on the Essex, including weapons systems.
Among these disclosures was a detailed roster of who was assigned to the ship and where they slept, prosecutors said.
For his efforts, the Chinese agent paid Wei a total of $12,816.59, Judge Marilyn Huff said.
Wei's defense attorneys asked Huff to impose a light sentence on the defendant, saying he held no animus for the U.S. and none of the documents he leaked were technically classified.
Parmley told reporters after the hearing that the classification level of the documents didn't matter.
"So if it wasn't classified secret or top secret, it was still incredibly sensitive," Parmley said. "In my view, when you betray your oath to your country, when you betray your fellow sailors, there's really no other word other than ... traitor."
Wei was born in China and lived in a boarding home when he was young after his mother accepted a job in Africa, said Sean Jones, one of Wei's attorneys.
His father wasn't in the picture, he said.
Wei immigrated to the U.S. where he went to high school. He joined the Navy after graduating and became a U.S. citizen, attorneys said.
Huff said she was sympathetic to Wei's difficult childhood but that doesn't excuse his conduct, she said.
"We expect more of people that are in the United States military," Huff said before imposing Wei's sentence. "This is a sad case."
Wei was sentenced to 200 months in prison. He's been in custody since summer 2023.
