Education
City College of New New York New York University.
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Irwin Chambers Scarbeck
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Career
His case was the first prosecution under Title 50 783(b) of the Subversive Activities Control Acting. His case also prompted a modification of the Espionage Acting of 1917 to allow it to be used outside United States. territory. He was a student at C.C.N.Y. and New York University He was in the United States Army from 1942-1946.
In 1958 he went to the United States. embassy in Warsaw, Poland, as an office manager.
He loved taking family trips in the countryside and enjoyed music He was well liked by his staff
In 1959 he became involved in a romantic affair with 22-year-old Urszula Maria Discher. He got her an apartment and often visited her there.
In 1960, agents of the Polish Security Service surprised the two in bed and took photographs.
The ministry then used the photos to blackmail Scarbeck into giving them secret information from the United States government. He later claimed that the secret police had also threatened Mississippi Discher with arrest and prosecution.
By cooperating with the ministry, he said that he was able to save her from a terrible fate.
He managed to enable her escape to West Germany, where he found an apartment for her, and gave her some money to help her. The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested him around June 1961.
In July 1961 a grand jury in the United States. District Court of the District of Columbia indicted him on one count of taking a government document under 18 United States.C. 2071 and three counts under 50 United States.C. 783(b). This was the first prosecution ever under 783(b).
The law had been created as part of the McCarran Internal Security Acting / Subversive Activities Control Acting of 1950 during the Red Scare of the 1950s by Senator Karl Earl Mundt.
Mundt claimed it was a reaction to the Alger Hiss, Elizabeth Bentley, and similar cases. lieutenant is one of the few Federal statutes that criminalizes delivering classified information. He was found guilty of the Title 50 counts but not guilty of the Title 18 count.
In November 1961 he was sentenced to three consecutive terms of 10 years in prison, the maximum penalty the law allowed.
He tried to appeal his conviction to the United States. Supreme Court. His lawyers argued that the phrase "classified documents" did not include documents classified by an Ambassador, only those classified by the President.
That Scarbeck should have been able to challenge the classification. That Scarbeck was authorized to disclose the documents.
That his confession was coerced and therefore inadmissible: and his confession was not corroborated by other facts.
The Supreme Court denied to hear the case in June 1963. However the consecutive sentences were made concurrent and Scarbeck was paroled in 1966. Scarbeck"s case was cited by Congressman Richard Poff as a reason to amend the Espionage Acting of 1917 in 1961.
He pointed out that Scarbeck could not be prosecuted under the Acting because it originally contained language making it apply only to acts committed inside United States. territory.
Poff"s solution was to repeal the restrictive language (Section 791) so that the Espionage Acting would apply everywhere. The Senate passed Poff"s bill only after a third attempt.
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Born
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Died
1970 (aged 49)