BY JUAN A. LOZANO

Associated Press

HOUSTON

Alexander Fishenko and six others made their initial appearance Thursday in Houston federal court. They did not enter pleas. An eighth defendant appeared in court Wednesday.

An indictment unsealed Wednesday accuses Fishenko of scheming to purposely evade strict export controls for cutting-edge microelectronics. It also charges Fishenko with money laundering and operating inside the United States as an unregistered agent of the Russian government.

"We're going to examine the charges very critically," said his attorney, Eric Reed. "There are some dramatic allegations in the indictment that we want to take a hard look at."

Fishenko was born in the former Soviet Union in what is now Kazakhstan and owns Houston-based Arc Electronics Inc. He and seven others were arrested following raids there by the FBI.

His wife, Viktoria, who was identified as a co-owner of her husband's business but not charged, declined to comment Wednesday.

"I will speak when I know what's going on," she said.

Co-defendant Svetalina Zagon wiped away tears as she was led away after the hearing. Prosecutors say Zagon was a saleswoman at Arc Electronics.

The Russian Foreign Ministry in a statement noted that the defendants are not charged with espionage. Officials said diplomats have met with one of the detained suspects. Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich lamented the fact that the United States failed to inform the Russian authorities of the impending arrests.

The indictment alleges that since October 2008, the 46-year-old Fishenko and his co-defendants "engaged in a surreptitious and systematic conspiracy" to obtain the highly regulated technology from U.S. makers and export them to Russia.

U.S. authorities say the microelectronics could have a wide range of military uses, including radar and surveillance systems, weapons guidance systems and detonation triggers. They also say the charges come amid a modernization campaign by Russian military officials hungry for the restricted, American-made components.

"The defendants tried to take advantage of America's free markets to steal American technologies for the Russian government," Loretta Lynch, U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, said in a statement.

Stephen L. Morris, head of the FBI office in Houston, called the charges an example of how some countries have sought to bypass export safeguards "to improve their defense capabilities and to modernize weapons systems at the expense of U.S. taxpayers."

According to court papers, Fishenko was born in the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan and graduated from a technical institute in St. Petersburg before coming to America in 1994.