digitalzygot
Senator (1k+ posts)
US space scientist Stewart Nozette, 52, was ordered held without bond Thursday after prosecutors said he was a "walking safe deposit box" of government secrets who claimed to have already passed some of them to Israel.
He is accused of seeking $2 million for selling secrets to an undercover FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer. Nozette had high-level security clearances during decades of government work on science and space projects. He was known primarily as a defence technologist who had worked on the Reagan-era Star Wars missile shield effort formally named the Strategic Defence Initiative.
Because he knows so many secrets, including about the nation's nuclear missile program, Attorney General Eric Holder has ordered special communications restrictions placed on him while he is in jail. "The defendant is himself a walking safe deposit box of classified information," said prosecutor Anthony Asuncion. During the hearing, Asuncion played video excerpts of an undercover sting operation against Nozette in which the scientist lounges on a hotel room couch, discussing the possibility of having to flee the country if he comes under scrutiny from US officials.
Asuncion said Nozette told the agent he had passed classified information to Israel in the past. "He told the agent that he had indeed communicated classified information," "He had admitted to the agent actual espionage." According to prosecutors, Nozette was paid more than $225,000 by a company that was wholly owned by the Israeli government and spoke to them regularly. In court Thursday, Kiyonaga identified the company as Israel Aircraft Industries.
During one of his secretly recorded conversations with the undercover FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer, Nozette said: "I thought I was working for you already. I mean, that's what I always thought, (the foreign company) was just a front."Prosecutors also say Nozette kept a stash of gold Krugerrand coins worth tens of thousands of dollars in a safe deposit box in California more evidence, they say, of his risk of flight.
He is accused of seeking $2 million for selling secrets to an undercover FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer. Nozette had high-level security clearances during decades of government work on science and space projects. He was known primarily as a defence technologist who had worked on the Reagan-era Star Wars missile shield effort formally named the Strategic Defence Initiative.
Because he knows so many secrets, including about the nation's nuclear missile program, Attorney General Eric Holder has ordered special communications restrictions placed on him while he is in jail. "The defendant is himself a walking safe deposit box of classified information," said prosecutor Anthony Asuncion. During the hearing, Asuncion played video excerpts of an undercover sting operation against Nozette in which the scientist lounges on a hotel room couch, discussing the possibility of having to flee the country if he comes under scrutiny from US officials.
Asuncion said Nozette told the agent he had passed classified information to Israel in the past. "He told the agent that he had indeed communicated classified information," "He had admitted to the agent actual espionage." According to prosecutors, Nozette was paid more than $225,000 by a company that was wholly owned by the Israeli government and spoke to them regularly. In court Thursday, Kiyonaga identified the company as Israel Aircraft Industries.
During one of his secretly recorded conversations with the undercover FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer, Nozette said: "I thought I was working for you already. I mean, that's what I always thought, (the foreign company) was just a front."Prosecutors also say Nozette kept a stash of gold Krugerrand coins worth tens of thousands of dollars in a safe deposit box in California more evidence, they say, of his risk of flight.
