Former Fed Scientist Sentenced to 13 Years in Espionage Case

An acclaimed former government scientist who was ensnared in an undercover FBI sting was sentenced today to 13 years in federal prison on charges he tried to sell secrets to a foreign intelligence agent.

Stewart Nozette, who pleaded guilty in September in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to attempted espionage, expressed remorse in court today for a lack of judgment.

Nozette, dressed in orange jail garb, was also sentenced today to about three years in prison for a tax fraud case. The sentence will be served simultaneously with the term he received for attempted espionage. Nozette, prosecutors said, believed he was dealing with an Israeli agent when he agreed to reveal classified information.

“Stewart Nozette's greed exceeded his loyalty to our country,” U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen Jr. said in a prepared statement. “He wasted his talent and ruined his reputation by agreeing to sell national secrets to someone he believed was a foreign agent.”

Nozette’s defense lawyers said Nozette, a noted scientist in the space industry, “never took a single step of his own volition” to betray his country. The attorneys, who included John Kiyonaga of Alexandria and Robert Tucker of Arlington, said the FBI preyed on a vulnerable man.

Sidley Austin partner Brad Berenson, who represented Nozette in the fraud case, said in court today that the attempted espionage charge was the product of “functional entrapment.”

“The government created the opportunity, tailor-made the circumstances…and essentially created both the crime and the criminal,” Berenson said in court today. He called the government’s conduct “at a bare minimum very ignoble, dishonorable.”

Assistant U.S. attorneys Anthony Asuncion and Michael Atkinson portrayed Nozette as a man motivated by greed.

Asuncion played a four-minute undercover video clip today that showed a smiling Nozette, sitting casually on a couch in a hotel as he discussed sharing information with an FBI agent posing as a foreign intelligence agent. He described Nozette as having “unbridled enthusiasm” to become a traitor of the United States.

In court papers, prosecutors included excerpts from the videos. “I don’t get recruited by Mossad every day,” Nozette said in one conversation. “I knew this day would come.”

Nozette formerly worked for the Department of Energy, Department of Defense and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Nozette was the president and director of the non-profit Alliance for Competitive Technology, or ACT. Between 2000 and 2006 the organization entered into agreements with several government agencies to develop highly advanced technology.

The tax fraud investigation, rooted in Nozette's used of ACT to receive income and pay personal expenses, led prosecutors to suspect that he misused government information, DOJ officials said. A person pretending to be an Israeli agent first contacted Nozette in September 2009.

Prosecutors said Nozette provided, in exchange for money, information that concerned satellites and early warning system. He has been in custody since his arrest in October 2009.

Nozette admitted in the tax fraud case to failing to report more than two hundred thousand dollars in income. U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman today ordered him to pay more than $217,000 in restitution to several victims, including NASA.

Berenson said Nozette is “utterly ruined,” with the loss of his career, marriage, finances and freedom. He described the government as being the “co-author” of a tragedy.

“They would have you believe that this case represents a triumph of good law enforcement and effective protection of the national security,” Berenson said. “The real truth of this matter is far more ambiguous. Indeed, in my mind, this is much, much closer to a tragedy than a triumph."

Comments

[Avon]

I think Avacado [sic] Pitt's point is wise:
he could as easily be tricked by the enemy as by US Intelligence into believing that it was the Mossad he was aiding.

I don't believe most people ever thought of that (I never had) - and I think it's an opinion-changing point. I generally think entrapment tactics stink, insofar as no crime would ever have occurred if the government had done nothing. But, at least on the matter of sentencing if not on the matter of guilt, I'm now ready to accept that it makes no difference if the suspect was really dealing with the Government.

[Avacado Pitt]

I agree with Isreal Rozemberg that espionage against [one's own] country is never good. But I do not see the basis for a claim of double standards. Mr. Nozette was apparently a US citizen entrusted with (and promised to keep) US secrets who then offered to sell those secrets. The Iranian was not a US citizen not entrusted with US secrets but apparently violated US laws. The two crimes are not the same, so different punishments are understandable.

I would also suggest that espionage is espionage irrespective of who the spy believes they are working for, whether friend or foe. In this case, Mr. Nozette was tricked by US intelligence into believing he was working for the Mossad. He just as easily could have been tricked by Iranian/Russian/Saudi/free-lance intelligence into believing he was selling these secrets to Israel. This is a common intelligence trick called “false flag” recruiting. If trusted with secrets, keep the secrets.

[Roger]

The penalty should be harsh regardless of who the traitor thinks he is dealing with.

[Israel Rozemberg]

Espionage against the country is never good. But here we have a double standard prosecuting espionage for Israel with harsh penalties compared to espionage for Iran with minimal penalties.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/153994

[Bill]

“Stewart Nozette's greed exceeded his loyalty to our country,”

Unlike all those (as yet unindicted) Wall Streeters who brought down our economy....

[michael r steinberg]

Greed begets corruption.

[lexdenovo]

“Stewart Nozette's greed exceeded his loyalty to our country,” U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen Jr. said.

Sounds a loot [sic] like our Congress.