Top US climate change expert faces jail after posing as CIA agent for a decade

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 leading American expert on climate change and the Environmental Protection Agency’s highest-paid employee, deserves to spend 30 months behind bars for lying to his bosses about being a CIA spy to avoid doing his real job, US federal prosecutors say.

Prosecutors described John Beale’s actions as “crimes of massive proportion” that were “offensive” to those who actually work for the CIA, NBC reported.

Beale pled guilty in September, and has been accused of major fraud of almost $1 million in salary and other benefits over a decade.

While Beale claimed to have a James Bond-style lifestyle, in reality he was leading a Walter Mitty-style fantasy double life.

At one point, Beale in fact claimed to be urgently needed in Pakistan because the Taliban was torturing his CIA replacement, according to EPA Assistant Inspector General Patrick Sullivan, who headed the investigation into Beale’s activities.

“Due to recent events that you have probably read about, I am in Pakistan,” Beale wrote to Gina McCarthy, the EPA’s administrator, in an e-mail dated December 18, 2010. “Got the call Thurs and left Fri. Hope to be back for Christmas ….Ho, ho, ho.”

The EPA official also failed to show at his workplace for long stretches of time, for instance, 18 months starting from June 2011. During this period, he did “absolutely no work,” according to Beale’s lawyer.

In 2008, Beale didn’t show up at the EPA for six months, telling his boss that he was part of a special multi-agency election-year project relating to “candidate security.”