Defense Executives Receive Probation for Illegal Missile Technology Exports to India

A federal judge in Boston on Friday ordered two defense executives to each serve three years of probation for illegally exporting material that aided India’s efforts to improve its Agni medium-range nuclear missile, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Aug. 15, 2003).

Walter Lachman, 72, will serve the first year of his sentence on home detention. Maurice Subilia Jr., 56, will spend six months at a halfway house and another year confined at home.

In 1995, the two men were convicted of violating export regulations designed to prevent nuclear proliferation. Lachman at the time was chief executive officer of Fiber Materials Inc. of Maine, and president of a company subsidiary, Materials International of Massachusetts. Subilia was president of the parent company and clerk at the subsidiary, AP reported.

U.S. District Judge Douglas Woodlock in 2003 overturned the convictions against the men and the companies, saying the export regulations were too vague to determine what was legal or illegal.

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year overturned Woodlock’s decision.

Woodlock imposed the probation sentences Friday, and also levied a $250,000 fine against the two men and Fiber Materials Inc. (Associated Press/The Boston Channel, Nov. 21).

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