10 Russian Spy Suspects Plead Guilty

(July 8) -- All 10 Russian spy suspects pleaded guilty in federal court today.

The accused agents pleaded guilty to the charge of conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign country, The Associated Press reports.

According to multiple reports, the plea deals will help facilitate a spy swap agreement between the United States and Russia and bring a rapid conclusion to an elaborate case that could otherwise go on for years and strain diplomatic relations between the two countries.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier today that defendants who are part of the agreement will not have to serve any jail time, but will be deported to Russia almost immediately.

Anna Chapman, also known as the 'Femme Fatale' suspect, will head home to Russia today, her lawyer, Robert Baum, told ABC. Baum said his client is "happy to get out of jail."

Further increasing speculation that the U.S. and Russia have reached a final spy swap agreement were the unknown whereabouts of Igor Sutyagin, the arms-control researcher imprisoned in Russia and accused of spying for the United States who is expected to be released as part of the swap.

"Here's the one thing I can say with complete certainty: At the moment, I have no idea where my son is," his mother, Svetlana Sutyagina, told The New York Times.

According to a report in The Washington Post, the U.S. and Russia began pursuing a diplomatic solution to the spy ring case last week.

The pleas may be a pivotal moment in the case of an alleged Russian spy ring that's captivated the nation.

Sutyagin's lawyer had told The Times that she expected him to be freed by the end of today, probably through a hushed prisoner exchange in Britain. Anna Stavitskaya said her client agreed to be part of a swap and signed a document this week admitting guilt, even though he's maintained his innocence and wanted to clear his name.

Ten of the 11 suspects appeared before U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood this afternoon in New York. The 11th accused spy was arrested and released on bail in Cyprus, but fled. He remains at large.

It's unclear what advice the 10 suspects' lawyers gave them -- whether to plead not guilty and fight the charges or plead guilty in exchange for a lighter punishment and possible deportation to Russia.

A federal indictment unsealed Wednesday charged all 11 with conspiring to act as secret agents, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison if convicted. Nine were also charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum of 20 years behind bars. Prosecutors have said they want those charged with the latter offense to forfeit their assets, including any real estate, to the U.S. government. Details were reported by several news agencies.

A lawyer for 28-year-old Anna Chapman, whose glamorous Facebook photos have branded her the sultry public face of the alleged spy ring, said his client initially wanted to fight the charge against her. She's one of those who faced only the lesser charge -- conspiring to act as an unregistered foreign agent.

But late Wednesday, her attorney, Robert Baum, signaled that Chapman was considering other options. One factor was the "onerous" conditions Chapman was enduring in a federal jail in Brooklyn, where she was kept in solitary confinement, Baum told The New York Times. Speaking to Bloomberg News, he called Chapman's treatment in jail "abusive," but didn't give details.

Chapman's lawyer also acknowledged that he had been engaged in "very sensitive discussions" with U.S. and Russian officials, but did not elaborate.

"I feel our discussions will probably be resolved by tomorrow one way or another," Baum told reporters from several news outlets, referring to today's arraignment. That expectation was echoed by Stavitskaya, the Russian prisoner Sutyagin's lawyer in Moscow.

Sutyagin's case is similar to those of the 10 suspects in U.S. custody, in that they're all accused of spying but haven't been charged with espionage. The Russian physicist was arrested in 1999 for passing information about nuclear submarines to a British company Moscow suspected of being a cover for the CIA. But Sutyagin argued he never had access to real state secrets, and human rights groups criticized his prosecution.

Peruvian-born U.S. citizen Vicky Pelaez is the only suspect who is believed not to be Russian and not to have undergone any training there. She is a veteran columnist for the Spanish-language El Diario La Prensa newspaper in New York.

Her lawyer, John Rodriguez, said moving to Russia might not be exactly what his client had in mind.

"There was a phone call from a member of the Russian Federation in New York concerning my client, asking if she was interested in going to Russia," Rodriguez told Bloomberg. "I said I didn't think she would."

But most of the suspects are believed to be originally from Russia and presumably could adapt back to life there, even though they posed as ordinary Americans living in the suburbs of New York, Washington and Boston.

In New Jersey, the woman neighbors knew as Cynthia Murphy had a slight accent, which she explained away by saying she was born in Belgium. But she and her husband -- it's unclear whether they're really married and the true biological parents of their two young daughters -- are believed to be Russian.

The fates of the seven children in the Russian spy ring are uncertain amid the reports of a "spy swap."

The two children of Mikhail Kutzik and Natalia Pereverzeva, Russian citizens who were living in Virginia under the false identities "Michael Zottoli" and "Patricia Mills," may be sent to live in Russia.

Prosecutors said Pereverzeva asked her sister to make arrangements to send the kids back to Russia, according to court papers obtained by The New York Daily News. The two young children, 1 and 3, are thought to be U.S. citizens. It is not clear if the request will be granted.

According to The Boston Globe, a judge allowed accused spies Donald Heathfield and Tracey Ann Foley to meet for an hour so they could talk about custody arrangements for their sons, Alex, 16, and Timothy, 20.

Legal experts say the alleged spies will likely be able to make custody decisions for their children, because their parental rights have not been terminated. But in a spy swap, accused spies who are Russian citizens - thought to describe all but one of the suspected agents - will likely be deported to Russia. It's not known yet if their children, many of whom may be U.S. citizens, will go with them.

Concern for the kids in the spy ring has been acute; the children, some as young as toddlers, were living seemingly ordinary lives and had no clue that their parents may have been living as secret agents.

"There is no inkling at all that their children, who they live with, have any idea that their parents are Russian agents," Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Farbiarz said, according to The New York Times.