See ya in five years, gramps. If ya live that long...
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| -Lurid Crime Tales- |
| Retiree Pleads Guilty To Giving U.S. Secrets To Israel in the 1980s |
| 2008-12-31 |
| A retired engineer from New Jersey whose clandestine activities went undetected for more than two decades pleaded guilty yesterday to a criminal charge accusing him of serving as an unregistered agent for Israel. Ben-Ami Kadish passed classified documents to an Israeli handler between about 1980 and 1985, when he worked at a U.S. Army research and engineering center at the Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, N.J., authorities say. Kadish, 85, will face a maximum term of five years in prison when he is sentenced by Manhattan U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III in February. The retiree acted out of a desire to help Israel, receiving only nominal gifts and family dinners in exchange for the 50 to 100 documents he shared, according to court papers filed by the government. Kadish, a U.S. citizen born in Connecticut, checked classified papers out of an Army research library and passed them to an Israel official, identified for the first time by prosecutors yesterday as Yossi Yagur. Yagur photographed materials related to nuclear weapons, the F-15 fighter jet program and the U.S. Patriot missile defense system, according to court papers. Yagur first drew attention more than 20 years ago as the handler for former Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard. Pollard is serving a life sentence in a federal prison in Butner, N.C., after pleading guilty in 1986 to an espionage-related charge. Pollard's case became the subject of ongoing international furor, and some Israeli supporters continue to lobby for his pardon or early release from prison. But through all those years, Kadish remained well below the radar. FBI agents arrived on Kadish's doorstep in a Monroe Township, N.J., retirement community in March 2008. Their visit prompted new contact in the form of a phone call between Kadish and Yagur, who left the United States more than two decades ago, prosecutors allege. The next day, FBI agents questioned Kadish anew, and he denied the call had taken place, according to court filings. His statements restarted the espionage investigation and led to yesterday's guilty plea to a single conspiracy charge. During the call, federal agents say, Yagur allegedly instructed Kadish to deny any involvement, saying: "Let them say whatever they want. . . . What happened 25 years ago? You didn't remember anything." An attorney for Kadish and a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy did not return telephone calls. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #9 Beneficial to allies or not. It is the strategic decision of the sovereign government of the Unite States whether it is in the national interest to pass them on, not citizens with (or without) other loyalties. You play the game without backup, you risk the penalties. At 85 (evading consequences since age 60?) he should be glad to be able to suffer the consequences. |
| Posted by: Frank G 2008-12-31 20:08 |
| #8 "Yagur photographed materials related to [sic] U.S. Patriot missile defense system, according to court papers." Receiving the documents for the Patriot missile years before the Iraq war, the IDF still didn't have a fix for a glitch in the missile batteries deployed in Israel during the 1991 Iraq War. This leads me to question the veracity of U.S. national security threat posed by the shared documents. In other words, encrypted software is at the heart of the Patriot missile. The Patriot missile un-encrypted software was not transferred to the IDF. Also, the IDF at the time, did not have military satellites or satellites that provides GPS during 1980-1985 time frame. The IDF at the time, piggy backed off the Pentagon or CIA GEOS, with permission of course. Even if the IDF had military capable GEOS, the encrypted software of the Patriot missile couldn't communicate with an non-U.S. satellite. I am making a lot assumptions. Just thinking out loud. Disclaimer: I believe that any transfer of U.S. classified documents to any foreign entity constitutes treason. |
| Posted by: Poison Reverse 2008-12-31 18:40 |
| #7 The retiree acted out of a desire to help Israel, receiving only nominal gifts and family dinners in exchange for the 50 to 100 documents he shared, Cheap date, isn't he? |
| Posted by: Raj 2008-12-31 17:49 |
| #6 TW - I think that was sarcasm on B's part... /I can spot that stuff |
| Posted by: Frank G 2008-12-31 16:56 |
| #5 I'm sure Mr. Kasish was indeed a native-born American citizen, possibly of Israeli parentage, Besoeker. After all, that's exactly what I am, and yet I still manage to be a loyal citizen of the United States. One has to wonder why nobody objected at the time to his checking out such a large number of classified documents from the Army research library. Is it possible there was a great deal of sympathy for what he was doing by Picatinny Arsenal management, given that this was only a few years after Israel was almost destroyed in the Yom Kippur War? Or were they really so blind that it was only discovered in the last year that malfeasance had occurred over two decades ago? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-12-31 16:45 |
| #4 Kadish, a U.S. citizen born in Connecticut? Foreign born. Closer security screening needed. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2008-12-31 15:19 |
| #3 It seems the value of American citizenship is not worth what it once was. Has treason become so common place that it warrants less punishment than burglary? Mr Kadish's severest punishment was investing with Bernie Madoff. |
| Posted by: ed 2008-12-31 15:13 |
| #2 Look for lots of articles aimed at showing that Israel isn't really a friend of the US at all. The Gaza operation will bring these out in droves. It's true: we're not BFFs. We're allies with shared values. Works for me. |
| Posted by: lotp 2008-12-31 15:05 |
| #1 See ya in five years, gramps. If ya live that long... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2008-12-31 14:42 |