A Central Intelligence Agency secretary in Manila, Baynes passed classified material to a former U.S. airman, Joseph G. Brown, who in turn sold them to Philippine government officials. Brown had joined the Air Force in 1966 but left two years later to work as a martial arts instructor for the Department of Tourism in Manila. Brown met Baynes in 1989 when she enrolled in one of his karate classes soon after her arrival in Manila, and their relationship developed to the point where, during the summer of 1990, she agreed to remove three documents from the CIA station in the U.S. embassy.
When the Federal Bureau of Investigation learned that he had suborned Baynes into supplying him with CIA reports on Iraq and Filipino separatists, he was lured to the United States with the offer of a lucrative contract training CIA personnel. On his arrival at Dulles International Airport in December 1992, he was arrested and
indicted on three charges of espionage. Baynes, who had joined the CIA in 1987, was convicted of espionage in May 1992 and sentenced to 41 months’ imprisonment.