WASHINGTON — A scientist who allegedly tried to sell classified secrets to Israel had worked on the U.S. government’s Star Wars missile shield program, and the Justice Department declared Tuesday that he had tried to share some of the nation’s most guarded secrets.
Arrested in an FBI sting operation, Stewart David Nozette was jailed without bond and accused in a criminal complaint of two counts of attempting to communicate, deliver and transmit classified information.
Had he succeeded in passing classified information, Nozette would have done grave damage to the nation’s security because the information he possesses includes “some of our most guarded secrets,” assistant U.S. attorney Anthony Asuncion said in court. He did not elaborate.
If convicted, the 52-year-old scientist most likely would have to spend the rest of his life in prison, and there is a substantial risk that he would flee now if allowed to remain free, the federal prosecutor told the magistrate. The next court proceeding in the case was scheduled for Oct. 29.
Scott Hubbard, a former co-worker, said Nozette was primarily a defense technologist who had worked on the Reagan-era Star Wars effort formally named the Strategic Defense Initiative.
“This was leading edge, Department of Defense national security work,” said Hubbard, a professor of aerospace at Stanford University who worked for 20 years at NASA. Hubbard said Nozette worked on the Star Wars project at the Energy Department’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
At Energy, Nozette held a special security clearance equivalent to the Defense Department’s top secret and “critical nuclear weapon design information” clearances. Energy clearances apply to access information specifically relating to atomic or nuclear-related materials.
Nozette, of Chevy Chase, Md., more recently developed the Clementine bi-static radar experiment that is credited with discovering water on the south pole of the moon.
Hubbard said that the Clementine project Nozette worked on in the 1990s was essentially a nonmilitary application of Star Wars technology. Nozette also worked for the White House’s National Space Council in 1989 and 1990.
A law enforcement official familiar with the investigation said authorities became worried about possible espionage activity by Nozette after an investigation by NASA’s inspector general in 2006 began looking at whether Nozette submitted false claims for expenses that were not actually incurred.
In probing Nozette’s finances in that case, investigators found indications he might be working for a foreign government, and they launched a national security investigation that eventually led to the undercover FBI sting, the official said.
From 1998 to 2008, the complaint against Nozette alleges, he was a technical adviser for a consultant company that was owned by the Israeli government. Nozette was paid about $225,000 over that period, the court papers say.
In January of this year, Nozette allegedly traveled to another foreign country with two computer thumb drives and apparently did not return with them.
An FBI affidavit says that on Sept. 3, Nozette received a telephone call from someone purporting to be an Israeli intelligence officer, but who was actually an undercover FBI agent. The two discussed Nozette’s willingness to work for Israeli intelligence, the affidavit said. Nozette allegedly told the agent, “Well, I should tell you my first need is that they should figure out how to pay me … they don’t expect me to do this for free.”
Nozette twice passed information to the FBI agents, according to papers in the case.
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