NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department has agreed not to prosecute a former CIA analyst who in 2024 was accused of serving as a secret agent for South Korea’s intelligence service, according to court documents filed Tuesday.
Federal prosecutors said Sue Mi Terry had shared nonpublic government information, facilitated access for South Korean officials to U.S. officials and accepted luxury gifts in exchange for advocating South Korean government positions during media appearances.
The Justice Department agreed Tuesday to put her prosecution on hold for a year, and then drop the charges altogether if Terry stays out of legal trouble. The deal comes weeks before Terry was set to stand trial in a Manhattan federal court on charges of acting as an unregistered foreign agent.
Prosecutors did not explain in court documents why they decided not to move forward with her case, saying only that they determined that the interests of both Terry and the U.S. "will be best served by deferring prosecution.” The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Terry had maintained her innocence. Her attorney, Lee Wolosky, said Tuesday that Terry had “served her country loyally for many years” and was pleased with this result.
“We have consistently maintained that her interactions with South Korean officials were conducted in furtherance of U.S. interests and her work as a leading American specialist on North Korea and East Asia,” Wolosky said in a statement.
As part of her deal, Terry signed a document agreeing to certain facts of the case, including that she had shared notes with a South Korean intelligence officer from an off-the-record meeting she attended with then-U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in 2022.
The document also said she accepted designer handbags and coats from South Korea’s intelligence service for her work, which were collectively valued at about $9,245.
FILE - An FBI seal is displayed on a podium before a news conference at the field office in Portland, Ore., Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV was expected to be admitted to a Rome hospital Tuesday for the removal of a lung nodule in an operation experts say will determine whether the lesion is malignant and if other treatment is needed.
Leo has offered a rare level of transparency about the first publicly disclosed major health problem of his 17-month papacy. He revealed the discovery of the small, localized nodule during his Sunday noon prayer and announced that he would have it removed.
The Vatican said Leo would be admitted to the Gemelli hospital late Tuesday morning, but there was no immediate word on the timing of the operation itself.
The surgery, which is usually performed under general anesthesia, will require a weeklong hospital stay and the Vatican on Monday canceled all Leo’s audiences through Oct. 20.
“These are things that can be treated very well, if the words he used reflect the clinical situation,” said Dr. Lorenzo Spaggiari, director of thoracic surgery at the European Institute of Oncology, or EIO, in Milan, who is not involved in the pope’s care but knows the team at Gemelli.
Spaggiari said he expected the team at Gemelli would perform a biopsy to determine whether Leo has lung cancer followed by the removal of a section or lobe of the lung where the nodule is located.
Both could be done using robotic techniques, and could be performed consecutively, under the same anesthesia, with different specialist teams, Spaggiari said.
A sophisticated robotic bronchoscopy technology called ION allows a biopsy on nodules as small as 3 millimeters (1/10 inch) , Spaggiari said. Both the Gemelli and the EIO have the technology, which has been available in Italy for just two years.
Gemelli also has robotic surgical technology, allowing the operation to remove the nodule to proceed “using a minimally invasive technique,” he said.
The technique involves the surgeon making four small incisions in the chest through which the instruments of the so-called da Vinci robot are inserted, he said. The surgeon then controls the robotic arms looking at a screen providing high-definition, 3D views of the surgical site.
“It’s a very well-established technology. This is something we have been doing for 20 years,” he said.
It wasn't known for certain what technique would be used on Leo. Gemelli has documented using both robotic procedures to diagnose and operate in under four hours.
The biopsy risk is “virtually zero,” while the surgical risk is very small, carrying a 0.6% to 0.8% mortality rate for patients in otherwise good health with good heart and lung function, Spaggiari said.
During the surgery to remove the nodule and part of the lung, doctors would also remove lymph nodes that drain the segment or lobe. “If all those lymph nodes turn out to be negative, so stage one, then the outlook is very good,” he said, adding that no other treatment would be necessary.
The nodule was discovered during regular checks, the Vatican has said, and Spaggiari said the pope has likely undergone other tests before being recommended for surgery.
“I think he has had a bit of luck. They found something that was asymptomatic — a lung nodule, possibly a tumor. He might call it something else; we call it luck,” he said.
EIO advises patients not to fly for three weeks after surgery — which would give the pope just the interval needed to make his planned Nov. 6-17 trip to Peru, Argentina and Uruguay, depending on his recovery.
“I think the Holy Father is in excellent hands at Gemelli,” Spaggiari said. “They have everything needed to keep the Holy Father alive for a long time.”
Leo’s surgery marks the first major health event of his pontificate. It was significant because the pope himself revealed the news, in perhaps the most public way possible: at the end of his Sunday noon blessing, with thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square.
The Vatican has for centuries zealously guarded the pope’s health and has often sent out confusing information, or none at all, about papal illnesses. Pope Francis tried to change that by being upfront about his frailties and musing on his eventual death. But even during his pontificate, information was tightly controlled.
Leo’s decision and reveal suggested an unusual level of transparency by the American pope.
“I really appreciated yesterday at the end of the Angelus, he himself said, ‘This is what’s going on — very transparent — and ask for prayers,’” said Quebec Cardinal Gérald Cyprien Lacroix at the Vatican Monday.
A lung nodule is a small abnormal area measuring less than 3 centimeters (1.2 inches) that sometimes appears on a CT scan of the chest or abdomen. Often, the scans are done to investigate trauma or a lung infection, unrelated to a lung cancer screening. A nodule can be benign or malignant, and oftentimes surgical removal is recommended both to establish whether it is cancer and to treat a malignancy while it is still localized.
Oncologists say even if the nodule turns out to be cancerous, Leo’s prognosis is “excellent” since it will have been removed at an early stage.
Barry reported from Milan.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Ice cream vendor Alicia Caso touches a life-size statue of Pope Leo XIV standing on display outside a church in the Barranco neighborhood of Lima, Peru, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, a month before the pope's visit to Peru. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)
Medical Director Andrea Cambieri, right, greets Pope Leo XIV as he arrives at the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, where doctors expect to operate to remove a lung nodule. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
A TV news crew stands outside St. Peter's Square, in Rome, Monday, Oct. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Postcards of Pope Leo XIV are displayed outside a shop selling religious items near St. Peter's Square, in Rome, Monday, Oct. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Pope Leo XIV leaves at the end the Angelus prayer in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
The statue of late Pope John Paul II is pictured at the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome, Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
A mosaic of Pope Leo XIV is displayed inside a shop selling religious items near St. Peter's Square, in Rome, Monday, Oct. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
