A leading US space scientist credited with helping discover water on the moon pleaded not guilty to charges he tried to sell US defense secrets to Israel for two million dollars.
Judge Deborah Robinson rejected a bail request from Stewart David Nozette, who was arrested October 19 in an FBI sting operation, saying he was considered a flight risk and should remain in jail pending trial.
Nozette, 52, is charged with two counts of attempted espionage for allegedly trying to sell secrets to an FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer ...
"The weight of evidence against the defendant is substantial," federal prosecutor Heather Schmidt told the court.
Court documents from the prosecution accused Nozette, who for years had a high-level US government security clearance, of seeking "roughly two million dollars as compensation for his espionage."
He "delivered and communicated this classified information to an individual he believed was an Israeli intelligence officer in exchange for an alias, a foreign passport, and cash payments," they said.
The government provided the court with recorded excerpts of a conversation with the FBI agent from October 19 in which a laughing Nozette mulled various plans to flee the United States should he be suspected of spying for Israel. Full story
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