FBI affidavit - Wired

meeting NICHOLSON received cash payments from the Russians, which he in turned used to
pay credit card bills and other expenses. The investigation of NICHOLSON disclosed that one of
his methods of communicating with agents of the SVRR was to send postcards using an alias
with coded notes regarding upcoming meetings. During his meetings with agents from the
SVRR, NICHOLSON provided them with classified national defense infonnation that had been
obtained through his employment with the CIA.
12. Some of the significant classified information that NICHOLSON disclosed
included the identity of the new CIA Chief of Station in Moscow and staffing information for
this CIA office; the true names and biographic profiles of CIA employees who were at the CIA
training facility during NICHOLSON'S two-year tenure there; biographic information and
assignment listings of CIA case officers; reports concerning CIA human assets and their
confidential reporting on foreign intelligence matters; and, human sources of infonnation, whose
identities the CIA seeks to protect from disclosure, their code names, positions, and access to
particular information. The investigation also showed that NICHOLSON planned on disclosing
classified information to Russian intelligence officials concerning the intelligence capabilities
and military preparedness of the Russian Federation.
13. Following his guilty plea, NICHOLSON disclosed that the Russian Federation
had paid him approximately $300,000 for his work on their behalf. He told agents that he
received $25,000 in Kuala Lumpur in June 1994; $50,000 in New Delhi, India, in December
1994; $50,000 in Jakarta, Indonesia, in May 1995; $125,000 in Zurich, Switzerland, in December
1995; and $50,000 in Singapore in June 1996. On April 22, 1997, NICHOLSON took a
polygraph examination pursuant to his plea agreement with the government. NICHOLSON