US spy Nozette held after FBI sting operation

After a successful FBI sting operation, Stewart David Nozette, a 52-year-old scientist from Chevy Chase, Maryland, was arrested on espionage charges yesterday for trying to sell US secrets to Mossad. He could now face the rest of his life behind bars.

Nozette (pictured above left in 1996) is a distinguished scientist who worked on the Star Wars programme in the Reagan era and led a radar project believed to have discovered water on the south pole of the moon in 1994. Until 2006 he worked, with high-level or 'Q' security clearances, at the Department of Energy. There, he had access to information about atomic and nuclear-materials.

From 1998 to 2008 he also moonlighted as a consultant for an unnamed Israeli aerospace firm, during which time he was paid $225,000 for answering technical questions. It was this work which bought him to the attention of the FBI.

So, on September 3 this year, Nozette received a call from an FBI agent pretending to be from Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. According to his affidavit, they arranged to meet later that day at a Washington hotel, where Nozette said he would be willing to trade secrets for money.

At a meeting the next day, Nozette allegedly told the agent performing the sting that he wanted to be paid in cash amounts "under ten thousand", so as to avoid having to declare his income to the tax authorities. He is alleged to have said, "Well, I should tell you my first need is that they should figure out how to pay me. They don't expect me to do this for free."

When asked whether he had much classified information, Nozette allegedly said he could remember almost everything the "US has done in space". He pointed his finger at his head and told the agent that "it's in there".

After that meeting, Nozette and the agent arranged a 'dead drop' at a Washington post office. Over the next month, the scientist supplied, on two occasions, manila envelopes containing sensitive information. According to the US Department of Justice, this concerned "US satellites, early warning systems, means of defence or retaliation against large-scale attack, communications intelligence information, and major elements of defence strategy".

In return, Nozette was paid $11,000 in bank notes, the serial numbers of which were recorded by the FBI.

Nozette will appear in a US District Court in Washington today. US Assistant Attorney General David Kris said the case "should serve as a warning to anyone who would consider compromising our nation's secrets for profit."