The espionage investigation of the Maryland scientist charged with attempting to pass the nation’s most guarded secrets to Israel was triggered by a NASA inspector general probe into Stewart Nozette’s technology company, a source with knowledge of the investigation said.
Nozette was taken into custody Monday after he accepted $11,000 from an FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer in return for classified information on U.S. satellite systems and nuclear weaponry, according to federal authorities. Nozette, a former White House employee, worked on the U.S. government’s Star Wars missile shield program. The 52-year-old was held without bail in D.C.’s federal court Tuesday. His attorney declined to comment.
In 2006, the NASA inspector general’s office began an investigation into Nozette’s Alliance for Competitive Technology. The Maryland-based company had contracts with NASA and the Department of Defense. The NASA investigation marked the end of Nozette’s top secret clearance.
According to court documents, the inspector general’s office believed Nozette was not accurately reporting to the Internal Revenue Service the $141,000 salary he received through the NASA contract. A NASA review of the alliance’s bank accounts found that Nozette was spending cash meant for the business on personal items including payments for three separate mortgages and the Mercedes-Benz Credit Corp.
A NASA spokeswoman said she could “not comment on an open investigation.”
But a source with knowledge of the investigation said NASA’s examination of the Alliance for Competitive Technology led authorities to a wider espionage investigation into Nozette.
Three years later, the discovery led the FBI to contact Nozette, in the guise of an Israeli agent.
According to charging documents, when Nozette was first contacted by the undercover agent on Sept. 3, Nozette reportedly said, “I thought I was working for you already. I mean that’s what I always thought, [the foreign company] was just a front.”
From 1998 to 2008, Nozette was a technical adviser for an aerospace company called Israel Aerospace Industries wholly owned by the Israeli government, charging documents said. During that time, Nozette was paid $225,000 for answering monthly questionnaires.
In 2006, Nozette’s attorney John Kiyonaga pleaded with NASA to drop its investigation into the Alliance for Competitive Technology in a letter to the then inspector general.
