Pollard Pleads Guilty to Spying for Israelis

Avoiding a sensational trial that could have strained U.S.-Israeli relations, former Navy analyst Jonathan Jay Pollard and his wife pleaded guilty today to espionage charges, admitting they sold Israel stacks of secret documents as part of an Israeli spy network that included three Israeli officials and an embassy secretary.

Appearing in U.S. District Court, Pollard, 31, indicted by a federal grand jury earlier in the day, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to deliver classified military information to Israel.

The indictment named four Israeli citizens as co-conspirators in the espionage network operating inside the United States.

They were Rafi Eitan, an Israeli intelligence official; Col. Aviem Sella, an officer in the Israeli air force; Joseph Yagur, a science attache at the Israel consulate in New York, and Irit Erb, a secretary at the Israeli Embassy in Washington.

Won’t Get Maximum

Pollard, waiving his right to trial, could have faced a maximum penalty of life in prison and a $250,000 fine. But his lawyer, Richard Hibey, said the government in the plea agreement has specifically waived its right to ask for a life sentence.

“I will accept your plea of guilty,” Judge Aubrey Robinson said after carefully questioning the accused spy.

Pollard’s wife, Anne Henderson-Pollard, 25, charged as her husband’s accomplice, pleaded guilty to two counts of “conspiracy to receive embezzled government property” and accessory-after-the-fact possession of national defense documents. She faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Sentencing dates were not set for either.

Couple Were Paid $45,000

The spying dated back to 1984 and the Pollards were paid $45,000, court documents showed.

Today’s climax of the dramatic case came after the Los Angeles Times reported last week that Pollard, who held a top-secret clearance for work on terrorist activities, was a link in a better organized and financed Israeli espionage ring in the United States than officials earlier thought.

The Israeli government has denied that it operated such a ring in the United States.

A civilian intelligence analyst with the Navy Investigative Service when he was arrested Nov. 21, 1985, outside the Israeli Embassy, Pollard, 31, worked in a special counterterrorism unit established after the bombing of the Marine headquarters in Beirut in October, 1983. He and his wife went to the embassy seeking political asylum, the FBI said.