A Maryland rocket scientist has been charged with a third count of attempted espionage for allegedly including details on a classified Navy satellite program among the items he’s accused of passing to an undercover FBI agent posing as an Israeli spy.
Stewart Nozette also allegedly told the “spy” that he had been storing classified information in a California safe deposit box since the 1990s, according to court documents filed in the District’s federal court Wednesday. His attorney John Kiyonaga declined to comment.
Nozette was taken into custody in October after federal authorities say 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.
The latest attempted espionage charge was included in a superseding indictment filed Wednesday. The original indictment filed Oct. 21 included two charges of attempted espionage.
In January, The Examiner reported that Nozette had been suspected of breaching top-secret protocols since 2002.
Prosecutors said in court documents that in 2002, he demanded he be given electronic copies of a classified Navy satellite system he created. When those demands were not met, Nozette allegedly signed on to a colleague’s computer and, posing as the colleague, e-mailed a government subcontractor working on the project and asked the company to send “Stu” a disk.
The ruse failed, and Nozette was demoted from his role as Pentagon point of contact for the project, authorities said.
But prosecutors now say information regarding the satellite program was among the information Nozette allegedly passed to the undercover FBI agent, resulting in the additional attempted espionage charge.
During an Oct. 19 meeting in a D.C. hotel with the agent, Nozette also reportedly said he had stored classified material in safe deposit boxes since the ’90s.
Authorities say Nozette told the agent he kept “technical specifications” in La Jolla, Calif., to keep them safe from “anybody coming into my house and searching it.”
Nozette was arrested during the Oct. 19 meeting. Agents then searched his house and found the key to the La Jolla safe deposit box. When they searched hard drives found inside the box, the FBI says agents found classified information.
