Jeffrey Alexander Sterling

Jeffrey A. Sterling
Born	Cape Girardeau, Missouri, U.S.
Residence	O'Fallon, Missouri, U.S.
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Washington University School of Law, 1992 Millikin University, 1989
Occupation	Fraud investigator (2004--his arrest in 2011) Lawyer (?--present) Former undercover CIA officer (May 14, 1993--January 31, 2002)
Known for	Whistleblower
Spouse(s)	Holly Sterling

Jeffrey Alexander Sterling is an American lawyer and former CIA employee who was arrested, charged, and convicted of violating the Espionage Act for revealing details about Operation Merlin to journalist James Risen. In May 2015, Sterling was sentenced to 3½ years in prison.

Sterling was born in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Sterling earned a political science degree at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, in 1989. In 1992, he graduated from the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, Missouri as a Juris Doctor.

Sterling joined the CIA on May 14, 1993. In 1995, he became operations officer in the Iran task force of the CIA's Near East and South Asia division. He held a top secret security clearance and had access to sensitive compartmented information, including classified cables, CIA informants, and operations.

After training in Persian in 1997, he was sent first to Bonn, Germany, and two years later to New York City to recruit Iranian nationals as agents for the CIA as part of a secret intelligence operation involving Iran's weapons capabilities. From early 1998 to May 2000, Sterling assumed responsibility as case officer for a Russian emigre with an engineering background in nuclear physics and production, whom the CIA employed as a carrier to pass flawed design plans to the Iranians.

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