U.S. Magistrate Judge Marc Goldman set Chi Mak’s bond at $300,000 and placed him in home detention with a global positioning system to monitor his movements. Mak’s attorney, Ronald Kaye, said his client likely would not post bail until Monday, the same day the brothers are in court for their post-indictment arraignment.

The release of the elder Mak on bail was another blow for federal prosecutors, who had originally accused the Mak brothers and Chi Mak’s wife, Rebecca Laiwah Chiu, of stealing government property, aiding and abetting, transportation of stolen goods and conspiracy.

The three were indicted on Tuesday on a single, and much less serious, charge of acting as agents of a foreign government without prior notification to the U.S. attorney general. The initial accusations carried a maximum combined sentence of 25 years. In contrast, the charge filed this week could bring 10 years at most.

According to the original affidavit, Mak, 65, stole computer disks from Anaheim defense contractor Power Paragon, where he was lead engineer on a sensitive research project involving propulsion systems for Navy warships. Power Paragon has more than 200 contracts with the U.S. Navy, according to court documents.

He and his wife allegedly copied the information to CDs, encrypted the files and delivered them to his younger brother, Tai Wang Mak, who was scheduled to fly to Hong Kong on Oct. 28 before heading to Guangzhou, China, to meet a contact. The younger Mak and his wife, Fuk Heung Li, were arrested at Los Angeles International Airport as they prepared to board a plane; the CD was found in Li’s luggage and also included music files.

Chiu was released earlier on $300,000 bail and the case against Li was dropped.

On Friday, Goldman questioned Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Staples about the discrepancy between the allegations in the original affidavit and what the grand jury returned.

“From what I’m getting now ... while the documents have security implications, they’re not the classified documents you said,” Goldman said. “I’m more concerned about the representations you made to me about the seriousness of these charges.”

Goldman said he was inclined to order Tai Wang Mak held without bail, but deferred that decision until Nov. 28, when Tai Wang Mak’s attorney will have an opportunity to cross-examine government witnesses about statements and evidence against his client.

Attorney John Early said his client disputes several government claims — including the fact that he served in the propaganda unit of the People’s Liberation Army in the 1970s and that he lied to arresting officers about the contents of the CD and about not having a brother. He also said his client didn’t encrypt the files on the CD, but instead compressed them into “zip files,” a common practice for storing large files.

Prosecutors have previously said authorities recovered from the CD restricted documents on the DDX Destroyer, considered the destroyer of the future, that were marked “for official use only.” Authorities also allege they found two lists in Chinese asking Chi Mak to get documents about submarine torpedo technology, electromagnetic artillery systems, weapon standardization, early warning technology to detect incoming missiles and defenses against nuclear attack.

Authorities believe Chi Mak has been feeding information to China since 1983, including highly sensitive information about radar power distribution systems on Aegis warships.

In new documents released Friday, prosecutors said they found a detailed hand-drawn map of the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, used for testing prototype nuclear reactors, at Chi Mak’s house.

Li, who was cleared of charges in the military case, was named Tuesday in a separate criminal complaint alleging she was involved with a company that paid U.S. citizens thousands of dollars to enter into fraudulent marriages with people wanting to immigrate to America. She is free on $50,000 bail.