James Risen - Wen Ho Lee

Wen Ho Lee

In an article that Risen cowrote with Jeff Gerth for The New York Times that appeared on March 6, 1999, they allege that "a Los Alamos computer scientist who is Chinese-American" had stolen nuclear secrets for China.

The suspect, later identified as Dr. Wen Ho Lee, pled guilty to a single charge of improper handling of national defense information, the 58 other counts against him were dropped, and he was released from jail . No espionage charges were ever proven. The judge apologized to Dr. Lee for believing the government and putting him in pretrial solitary confinement for months.

On September 26, 2000, the New York Times apologized for significant errors in reporting of the case. Dr Lee and Helen Zia would later write a book, My Country Versus Me, in which he described Risen and Garth's work as a "hatchet job on me, and a sloppy one at that". He points out numerous factual errors in Risen & Gerth's reporting. The Times was one of five newspapers, including also the Los Angeles Times, which jointly agreed to pay damages to settle a lawsuit concerning their coverage of the case and invasion of privacy.