U.S. Department of Justice
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| Stewarte David Nozette |
WASHINGTON - Stewart David Nozette, a scientist who once worked for the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the White House’s National Space Council, pleaded guilty today to attempted espionage for providing classified information to a person he believed to be an Israeli intelligence officer.
The guilty plea, which took place this morning in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, was announced by Lisa Monaco, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; and James W. McJunkin, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office.
Nozette, 54, of Chevy Chase, Md., pleaded guilty to one count of attempted espionage. Senior Judge Paul L. Friedman, who presided at the plea hearing, scheduled a status hearing for Nov. 15, 2011. No sentencing date was set. The plea agreement, which is subject to the judge’s approval, calls for an agreed-upon prison term of 13 years.
Nozette has been in custody since his arrest on Oct. 19, 2009. FBI agents arrested him following an undercover operation in which he provided classified materials on three occasions, including one occasion that forms the basis for today’s guilty plea. He was subsequently indicted by a federal grand jury. The indictment does not allege that the government of Israel or anyone acting on its behalf committed any offense under U.S. laws in this case.
“ Stewart Nozette betrayed America’s trust by attempting to sell some of the nation’s most closely-guarded secrets for profit. Today, he is being held accountable for his actions. As this case demonstrates, we remain vigilant in protecting America’s secrets and in bringing to justice those who compromise them,” said Assistant Attorney General Monaco.
“Stewart Nozette was once a trusted scientist who maintained high-level government security clearances and was frequently granted access to classified information relating to our national defense. Today he is a disgraced criminal who was caught red-handed attempting to trade American secrets for personal profit. He will now have the next 13 years behind bars to contemplate his betrayal,” said U.S. Attorney Machen. “The FBI and its partners deserve tremendous credit for their outstanding work on this case. This investigation and prosecution demonstrate our commitment to identifying and punishing those who would put our national security at risk.”
“Preventing the loss or compromise of high-technology and vital national security information is a top priority of the FBI,” said Assistant Director in Charge McJunkin. “This case is a prime example of what happens when a person decides to sell our nation’s most valuable secrets for individual gain.”
Background
Nozette received a Ph.D. in Planetary Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983. He has worked in various capacities on behalf of the U.S. government in the development of state-of-the-art programs in defense and space. For example, Nozette worked at the White House on the National Space Council, Executive Office of the President, from approximately 1989 through 1990. He also worked as a physicist for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from approximately 1990 to 1999, where he designed highly advanced technology.
Among other things, Nozette assisted in the development of the Clementine bi-static radar experiment which purportedly discovered water ice on the south pole of the moon. A version of the Clementine satellite currently hangs on display at the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and was later hailed as the vanguard of the new “faster, cheaper, better” revolution in space exploration.
Nozette was also the president, treasurer and director of the Alliance for Competitive Technology (ACT), a non-profit organization that he organized in March 1990. Between January 2000 and February 2006, Nozette, through his company, ACT, entered into agreements with several government agencies to develop highly advanced technology. Nozette performed some of this research and development at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in Arlington, Va., and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
According to a factual proffer in support of the guilty plea, from 1989 through 2006, Nozette held security clearances as high as TOP SECRET and had regular, frequent access to classified information and documents related to the national defense of the United States. The factual proffer also provides details about the undercover operation that led to Nozette’s arrest.
The Investigation
According to the factual proffer, on Feb. 16, 2007, law enforcement agents executed a search warrant at Nozette’s home in Maryland as part of a fraud investigation and found classified documents. Further investigation into the classified documents revealed that in 2002, Nozette sent an e-mail threatening to take a classified program he was working on, “to [foreign country] or Israel and do it there selling internationally...” As a result of this and other information giving rise to suspicion of espionage, the FBI decided to conduct an undercover operation.
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