A Maryland scientist who once worked at the White House and had top secret clearance with the U.S. military has been accused of trying to sell U.S. nuclear weaponry, military spacecraft and satellite secrets to an FBI agent posing as an Israeli spy, prosecutors said.
Stewart David Nozette, 52, was taken into custody Monday at his Chevy Chase home. Over the last several weeks, authorities say Nozette accepted $11,000 in exchange for U.S. military secrets that he provided to the undercover agent from memory. For nearly 20 years Nozette had access to some of the country’s best kept secrets, but he lost his security clearance soon after a NASA inspector general began an investigation into a company he ran.
Nozette started the nonprofit Alliance for Competitive Technology to help develop advanced equipment for NASA and the Department of Defense, some of which, prosecutors say, he was willing to sell to the Israeli government.
Between 1998 and 2008, Nozette provided consulting services to an Israeli aerospace company where he answered questions in return for $225,000, law enforcement authorities said, declining to name the company.
On Sept. 3, Nozette was contacted by the undercover FBI agent and discussed his willingness to work with Israeli intelligence, court documents said. He said he would provide information to Israel in exchange for money and an Israeli passport, according to the FBI. Nozette told the agent he no longer had access to classified information, but could recall details from when he had clearance.
The FBI sent Nozette two lists of questions and $11,000 cash, prosecutors said. When the FBI reviewed Nozette’s answers, they found he had leaked classified information on a satellite prototype, information on U.S. early warning systems, plans to defend and retaliate against major attacks, and other “major elements of defense strategy,” prosecutors said.
Nozette is scheduled to appear in D.C.’s federal court Tuesday, where questions of how he fell from a top-level government scientist to the owner of a company that was investigated for dodging taxes may be answered. Calls for comment to his home were not returned.
Nozette began the Alliance for Competitive Technology in 1990 as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate was finishing up a two-year stint as a member of the White House’s National Space Council. While working there, he was credited with developing a radar that found water on the moon’s south pole. Nozette left the Department of Energy, where he had classified clearance to study U.S. nuclear weaponry, in 1999.
In 2006, a NASA inspector general investigated discrepancies between the cash Nozette was receiving for his contracts and what he was reporting to the IRS, court documents said. Among the issues listed in court documents were “numerous” payments for personal expenses from company accounts. Court documents indicate the government did not renew its contracts with Nozette.
