Career
Bored with his low-ranking status as a Central Intelligence Agency clerk, he stole a top-secret KH-11 spy satellite manual from his employers in 1977. Afterwards, he resigned from his job, flew to Greece, and sold the manual to the Soviet embassy in Athens in return for $3,000. Kampiles subsequently returned to the United States and informed his former Central Intelligence Agency bosses of what he had done, in the mistaken belief that he would be recruited as a double agent.
Instead, he was charged with espionage by the United States Government, put on trial in 1978, and convicted.
He was originally sentenced on November 17, 1978, to 40 years imprisonment. However, his prison sentence was later reduced to 19 years, and he was released on 16 December 1996, after serving 18 years as Federal Prison inmate "04028-164".
