ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A retired decorated Air Force sergeant who worked as a civilian at the super-secret office that builds and operates U.S. spy satellites was held Friday on a spying charge.

Brian P. Regan, 38, appeared in federal court a day after federal authorities took him into custody as he was passing through a security checkpoint to take a Lufthansa flight to Zurich, Switzerland, via Frankfurt, Germany.

Regan is charged with conspiracy to commit espionage. Prosecutors would not name the country or countries that received U.S. secrets. But a government source said it was Libya.

"Mr. Regan conspired to transmit classified U.S. national defense information to a person or persons he knew was working for a foreign government with the intent to aid that foreign government and bring injury to United States," said U.S. Attorney Kenneth Melson.

Regan, a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., had received a number of military honors, including an award for distinguished service involving his work as an intelligence analyst following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

The arrest came not long after federal prosecutors negotiated a plea-bargain deal with Robert Hanssen, who pleaded guilty to several counts of spying over several years for Russia. Melson said he knew of no connection between the Regan and Hanssen cases.

Regan, sporting a goatee and dressed in a green, blue and white striped polo shirt and dark green slacks, appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Welton Sewell.

Regan, who was not handcuffed, was asked whether he had a lawyer.

"No, your honor," he replied in a barely audible voice.

"Are you in a position to hire counsel?" Sewell asked.

"No," Regan replied.

The judge advised him he could have a court-appointed lawyer. Prosecutors asked that Regan be held without bond, and a combined detention and preliminary hearing was set for Wednesday. Prosecutors said the maximum sentence for the charges were life in prison or, in certain cases, the death penalty, and a $250,000 fine.

Court papers said that Regan had debts of $53,000 earlier this year.

According to an affidavit, Regan served in the Air Force from August 1980 until retiring in August 2000. He was trained in cryptanalysis and his responsibilities included administering the Intelink Web site, a classified U.S. government computer system accessible only to certain members of the U.S. intelligence community.

Regan's last assignment with the Air Force was at the National Reconnaissance Office, where he had access to top-secret defense information. His access to this information was terminated in August 2000 when he retired from the Air Force, but it was reinstated in July, when he went back to work at NRO as an employee of TRW, a government contractor in Fairfax, Va.

The affidavit said Regan, a father of four, was suspected of being the source of a number of classified documents received by an unnamed country. The documents consisted of secret electronic images, a secret CIA intelligence report and a secret document related to a foreign country's satellite capability, among others, the affidavit said.

It was unclear what interest Libya might have in such material. Private analysts said Libya is chiefly concerned with the military activities of its North African neighbors and U.S. knowledge of Libya's chemical weapons program.

A search of Regan's work computer showed that his password had been used to access some of the documents and to access Intelink addresses associated with other documents. His password has also been used to surf Intelink addresses for the country that had received the documents and two other countries.

Regan had traveled to Iceland and to countries in Europe the same day that one document had been accessed. In June, by then under FBI surveillance, he traveled to Munich, Germany.

Investigators discovered that Regan, on Thursday, had logged onto Intelink and accessed classified material. He was also seen looking at a secret document on his computer terminal and taking notes in a small notebook, which he put in his front pants pocket, according to the affidavit. Regan was carrying the notebook when he was stopped at the airport.

Authorities said that on Thursday morning, while Regan was in a meeting at NRO, the FBI searched his Dodge Caravan and found a bag that contained encrypted messages and handwritten addresses and phone numbers for unnamed foreign countries' diplomatic offices in Switzerland and Austria.

Regan had told colleagues he was taking his family to Disney World in Orlando, but the affidavit said he had reservations to fly Thursday to Zurich, Switzerland, through Frankfurt, Germany, with plans to return Thursday.

FBI agents stopped Regan at Dulles Airport Thursday night as he was trying to pass through a security checkpoint. When FBI agents questioned him, Regan denied knowing about cryptanalysis and coding, but when showed photos of documents that had been seized from his bag, he said, "This is my stuff."

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The National Reconnaissance Office is an agency of the Defense Department and is staffed by employees of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Department. The existence of the NRO was an official secret until 1992.

Regan lives in one of about a half-dozen attached townhouses at the end of a quiet street in suburban Bowie, Md. He and his wife have four children.

On Friday, an Associated Press reporter knocked on the slightly ajar door to the home, which was quickly closed after a resident looked out the window.

Neighbors said the family was quiet and kept to themselves. Several bicycles were seen outside the two-story, red brick home with white trim.

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