Stiff Sentence for Israeli Spy Urged by U.S.

Federal prosecutors, urging that Israeli spy Jonathan Jay Pollard be sentenced to a substantial prison term, depicted him Tuesday as a money-driven operative addicted to the high life who did far more damage to national security than previously disclosed.

In an unusually detailed sentencing memorandum filed in federal court, U.S. Atty. Joseph E. diGenova said that Pollard’s refusal to cooperate with authorities once he was detected in November, 1985, enabled three of his Israeli co-conspirators to escape U.S. law enforcement.

Moreover, in supplying the Israelis with more than 1,000 classified documents, the former civilian intelligence analyst for the Navy has exposed sources of U.S. intelligence and analysts, making them vulnerable to additional espionage attempts, DiGenova said.

Rejecting Pollard’s “expected claim” that espionage on behalf of a U.S. ally is less damaging than spying for a communist state, DiGenova contended that “a moderate sentence would not deter, and may even invite, similar unlawful conduct by others.”

Pollard, who pleaded guilty last June 4 to conspiring to deliver national defense information to a foreign government, faces maximum punishment of life imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.

He is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 10, along with his wife, Anne Henderson-Pollard, who pleaded guilty to less serious crimes of conspiring to receive government property and being an accessory to possession of national security information. She could receive up to 10 years in prison and fines of up to $500,000.

Strained Israeli Relations

The Pollard case put substantial strain on U.S.-Israeli relations as American investigators complained that the Israeli government, which disowned the espionage effort as a renegade operation, was not fully cooperating in the U.S. probe.

DiGenova, in an interview Tuesday, declined comment on the level of Israeli cooperation but said that the investigation “is continuing and action against other individuals is under consideration.”

Court papers filed Tuesday said that the FBI had retrieved copies of 163 classified U.S. military documents from Israel in its investigation of Pollard. The documents were described as photocopies of documents that Pollard had given Israeli contacts.

The charges against Pollard named four Israeli officials as unindicted co-conspirators. They are Air Force Col. Aviem (Avi) Sella, Pollard’s first intelligence “handler”; Joseph Yossi Yagur, a science consul in the Israeli consulate in New York; Irit Erb, formerly a secretary in the Israeli Embassy here; and Rafael (Rafi) Eitan, who reportedly headed a secret government bureau that oversaw U.S. intelligence operations.

In contending that Pollard “had become literally addicted to the high life style funded by his espionage activities,” the sentencing memorandum noted that, during an Israeli-financed three-week trip through Europe in the summer of 1985, Pollard insisted on “certain first-class hotels” and obtained a $700-plus private compartment aboard the Orient Express.

He and his wife apparently paid cash for hotel and restaurant bills in a number of European resort cities, including Saint-Tropez, Cannes, Nice and Monte Carlo.

Sought Hike in Payments

The prosecutors said Pollard had admitted that he persuaded the Israelis in 1985 to “up it (his salary) by a thousand”--to $2,500 a month from $1,500--by emphasizing the quality of secrets he had provided.

At the time of his arrest, Pollard had received $50,000 in cash, had been told by the Israelis that $30,000 had been deposited for him in a foreign bank account and was due to draw for nine more years’ work an additional $540,000, the memo said.

During the year before their arrest, the government estimated, the Pollards spent nearly as much in cash as the $29,000 of their combined legitimate income that they disbursed through their checking accounts for routine living expenses.

“Throughout his relationship with the Israelis the lure of money motivated and, eventually, consumed this defendant,” the memo said, rejecting Pollard’s claim that his espionage was motivated not by financial gain, but by his desire to help Israel in its fight against terrorism.

The memo noted that Israeli agents had rejected classified information Pollard obtained on terrorism from his assignment in a Navy anti-terrorist intelligence unit and instead directed him to obtain other secrets unrelated to his duties--action that helped call him to the attention of Navy investigators.

Disclosed Secret Analyses

In addition to supplying the Israelis with thousands of pages of classified documents over an 18-month period, Pollard disclosed classified economic and political analyses to two professional investment consultants to help them in advising clients, the memo charged. Prosecutors said that Pollard hoped to be rewarded eventually with business opportunities when he left his Navy job.

The government submitted a separate classified memo to Chief U.S. District Judge Aubrey Robinson on the damage of Pollard’s espionage. In its unclassified memo, it noted that he had supplied 17 months of daily cable traffic that included details about U.S. ship positions, aircraft stations, tactics and training operations.

In arguing for a substantial prison sentence, DiGenova noted that Pollard had expressed no remorse and had told two FBI agents early in the debriefing he underwent that he would do it all again if given the chance.