A Missouri man who worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the 1990s has been arrested for passing secrets to a reporter at a major newspaper.

According to the St. Louis Beacon, the reporter was James Risen of the New York Times. And the story pertained to the agency’s attempts to stop the Islamic Republic of Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

Jeffrey Alexander Sterling, 43 of O’Fallon, Mo., was arrested Thursday morning on a 10-count indictment unsealed in Virginia. It accuses him of the unauthorized disclosure of national security information and obstruction of justice. Later in the day he appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Terry I. Adelman in St. Louis. Adelman scheduled a detention hearing for 2 p.m., Monday, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Both the New York Times and James Risen have refused to comment. An attorney for Sterling says his client denies the allegations.

An interesting aspect: People magazine did a profile on Sterling about a decade ago when he had a falling-out with the CIA. Sterling, who is black, accused the agency of racial discrimination.

Sterling complained to the agency’s Equal Employment Opportunity office when his bosses became angry that he failed to fulfill his responsibilities as a recruiter of sources. Then he became all the more angry when the agency refused to assign him to an overseas posting. Following his failure to recruit, he was placed on leave and fired.

It would appear that Sterling liked to blame his problems on racism. That despite the agency having hired and maintained a large percentage of minority employees during the same period of time. And it appears that plenty of other African-Americans stayed and advanced with the agency.

The indictment says Sterling leaked information in retaliation for the agency’s refusal to settle a discrimination complaint and its refusal to allow him to publish his memoirs (books need to be cleared by the agency). While Sterling had filed suit against the CIA in federal court, a federal judge ruled in favor of the agency.

The indictment states that Sterling then, in retaliation, contacted a national newspaper and met with a reporter from the paper in connection with a possible article to be written in early 2003. The information later was published in a book in 2006, the indictment states.

Risen, the New York Times reporter who disclosed the warrantless wiretaps of the Bush administration, wrote a book in 2006: “State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration.” Chapter nine of that book described how the CIA had used a former Russian nuclear scientist to provide the Iranians with a flawed design for a nuclear detonating device.

The Russian scientist met with an Iranian official in Vienna in February 2000. The scientist spotted the flaw in the plans, Risen reported, but the CIA went ahead with the operation. The scientist decided to alert the Iranians to the problem so that he would be taken seriously. Risen said the operation had been reckless and could have given Iranians valuable information. He wrote that a CIA case officer told a congressional intelligence committee about the problems believing that the agency had “assisted the Iranians in joining the nuclear club.”

The Obama administration — like the Bush administration — had tried to force Risen to disclose his source for the information. Risen had refused, according to the his lawyer. (Click here to read the New York Times account of Risen’s subpoena.)

The indictment charges Sterling with six counts of unauthorized disclosure of national defense information and one count each of unlawful retention of national defense information, mail fraud, unauthorized conveyance of government property and obstruction of justice. The obstruction of justice relates to Sterling’s alleged attempts in 2006 to erase emails on his contacts with Risen.

Sterling faces decades upon decades of prison time for his actions.