Thumbnail sketches of 11 defendants accused of spying for Russia

Thumbnails of 11 defendants in Russian spy case

ANNA CHAPMAN

Chapman, 28, is the daughter of a Russian diplomat. Photos of the redhead that showcased her social life and travels were splashed all over the tabloids, and she was branded a femme fatale.

Her attorney, Robert Baum, said she had visited the U.S. on and off since 2005 before settling in the U.S. Previously, she had lived for seven years in the United Kingdom after marrying an Englishman. Chapman is her married name; she’s now divorced. Her maiden name is Kushchenko.

Prosecutors say Chapman used a specially configured laptop computer to transmit messages to another computer of an unnamed Russian official.

She was arrested at a New York Police Department precinct after turning in a fake passport an undercover FBI agent had given to her. She pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign country.

TRACEY LEE ANN FOLEY

Foley, 47, lived in Cambridge, Mass., and is married to Donald Howard Heathfield. The couple has two sons, Tim Foley, 20, a student at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and Alex Foley, 16, a student at the International School of Boston.

Foley was a real estate agent who showed houses in the Boston area. She worked on a contract basis for the real estate brokerage Redfin.

She pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign country. Her real name is Elena Vavilova.

DONALD HOWARD HEATHFIELD

Heathfield, 49, lived in Cambridge, Mass., and is married to Tracey Lee Ann Foley. He graduated from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government with a master’s in public administration in 2000.

Heathfield worked as a sales consultant at Global Partners Inc., a Cambridge-based international management consulting firm. He also had his own consulting company, Future Map Strategic Advisory Services LLC. Prosecutors said Heathfield met in 2004 with an employee of the U.S. government to discuss nuclear weapons research. He pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign country. His real name is Andrey Bezrukov.

JUAN LAZARO

Lazaro, 66, told people for decades that he was born in Uruguay and was a Peruvian citizen, but he is actually Russian and his real name is Mikhail Vasenkov. He studied at the New School for Social Research, now called The New School, a university in Manhattan. He taught a class on Latin American and Caribbean politics at Baruch College, also in Manhattan, for a short time in 2008.

An agent for Russia for years, Lazaro brought his wife, Vicky Pelaez, into the conspiracy by having her pass letters to the Russian intelligence service on his behalf. The couple’s home in Yonkers, N.Y., was also paid for by Russian intelligence. He pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign country.

CHRISTOPHER METSOS

Metsos is the suspected paymaster for the U.S. spy ring. He was arrested June 29 in Cyprus on an Interpol warrant as he tried to board a flight for Budapest, Hungary. Released on $33,000 bail a day later, he promptly disappeared and is now a fugitive. Canadian authorities said he was traveling as a 54-year-old tourist on a Canadian passport that stole the identity of a boy who died at age 5. He has been charged with conspiring to act as a foreign agent and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Authorities have not released any other identity for him.

PATRICIA MILLS

Mills, 36, is the assumed name for Natalia Pereverzeva, living in the United States with Mikhail Kutsik, who used the name Michael Zottoli. Like Kutsik, she held a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Washington, obtained in 2006.

Neighbors describe the two as a smiling, attractive couple raising a young son and toddler in an Arlington, Va., high-rise apartment.

They moved to northern Virginia last year from Seattle. Prosecutors have said they are making arrangements to send the children home to Russia. She pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign country.

RICHARD MURPHY

Murphy, with his wife, Cynthia, are the parents of two daughters, Kate, 11, and Lisa, 9. The family, who lived in a suburban neighborhood in Montclair, N.J., had been in the U.S. since the 1990s.

Neighbors say Richard, 43, mostly stayed home with the children, caring for them and the home, while his wife worked a well-paying job in New York City. Born Vladimir Guryev, he pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign country.

CYNTHIA MURPHY

Married to Richard Murphy, the couple lived in a suburban neighborhood in Montclair with their daughters, Kate, 11, and Lisa, 9. The family had been in the U.S. since the 1990s.

Concealing her true name — Lydia Guryev — the 39-year-old worked for Morea Financial Services, a lower Manhattan-based accounting firm that offered tax advice, earning $135,000 a year, and had recently earned her MBA.

Prosecutors said one of her assignments had been to network with Columiba University students.

She pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign country.

VICKY PELAEZ

Married to Juan Lazaro, Pelaez, 55, was born in Peru. She worked in New York City as a columnist for one of the United States’ best-known Spanish-language newspapers, El Diario La Prensa. She had come to the U.S. after being briefly kidnapped by a leftist guerrilla group in Peru in 1984.

Pelaez lived under her real name and was an American citizen, but now plans to return to Peru after a brief stay in Russia, according to her attorney.

The couple have a teen son, Juan Lazaro Jr., a gifted pianist. Pelaez also has a 38-year-old son from a previous marriage.

She pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign country. Pelaez is her real name.

MIKHAIL SEMENKO

Semenko of Arlington, Va., worked at the Travel All Russia travel agency in Arlington leading up to his arrest. Semenko attended Amur State University on Russia’s border with China, where he was enrolled in a Chinese studies program. It was there he met Slava Shirokov, owner of the travel agency that eventually employed Semenko. After arriving in the U.S., he received a graduate degree from Seton Hall University in New Jersey. Shirokov said Semenko liked to attend functions at the Russian embassy and talked about landing a job in international relations. He pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign country. Semenko is his real name.

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MICHAEL ZOTTOLI

Zottoli, 41, is the assumed name for Mikhail Kutsik, who was living as part of a married couple with Natalia Pereverzeva, purporting to be Patricia Mills. In Seattle, he worked at Premier Global Services, Inc., a telecommunications firm, from 2007 to 2009. Zottoli earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Washington in 2006. He and Mills moved to northern Virginia last year. After his arrest, he and his purported wife admitted that Zottoli and Mills were assumed names and provided their real names, which had not been known at the time of their arrest. He pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign country. The couple have two young children.

Associated Press writers Matthew Barakat in Alexandria, Va., Deepti Hajela in New York, Denise Lavoie in Boston and Bruce Shipkowski in Trenton, N.J., contributed to this report.