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Ben-Ami Kadish, now 85, left the federal courthouse in Manhattan in April. (Photo: Cary Conover for The New York Times)
Ex-Army Engineer Pleads Guilty to Spying for Israel
December 30, 2008, 1:42 pm
By Alison Leigh Cowan AND Sewell Chan
Ben-Ami Kadish, an 85-year-old former Army engineer in New Jersey, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to spying for Israel by leaking secret documents about nuclear arms, missiles and fighter jets to the Israeli government during the 1980s.
Pleading guilty to one count of participating in a conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent for Israel, Mr. Kadish admitted that from about 1980 to 1985, he provided numerous classified documents, including information about missile systems, to Yosef Yagur, a science adviser at the Israeli consulate in New York, who photographed the documents in Mr. Kadish’s home. At the time, Mr. Kadish worked as a mechanical engineer at the Army’s Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center at Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, N.J.
In his guilty plea, Mr. Kadish said that Mr. Yagur, via telephone calls from the Bronx, had asked him to obtain classified military documents, including documents related to missile defense systems. Mr. Kadish admitted that he obtained the documents from the arsenal’s library. The guilty plea states that Mr. Kadish “did not ask for, nor did he receive, anything of value for the classified documents,” which he provided “for the benefit of Israel.”
After he pleaded guilty, Mr. Kadish, who wore a hearing aid and was allowed to sit during the proceeding, thanked the court and added, “I want to wish you all a happy new year.” After that, his wife handed him his hat and warned him not to speak with any reporters. Mr. Kadish then shook the hands of the prosecutors.
Magistrate Judge Theodore H. Katz entered Mr. Kadish’s plea in United States District Court in Manhattan. Sentencing was scheduled for Feb. 13 before Judge William H. Pauley.
Mr. Kadish faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000, but he could face only a few months in jail or even no jail time under a plea agreement with federal prosecutors.
When Mr. Kadish was arrested and charged in April, the case stunned his neighbors in their quiet retirement community of Monroe Township, N.J., about an hour southwest of New York City. Mr. Kadish was active in the community, organizing hospital visits and prayers for the dead, advising acquaintances on how to buy Israel bonds, serving meals on wheels and persuading the condominium association to let him build a Sukkot hut in his yard each autumn. In his spare time, he tracked down 500 relatives and posted a family tree to a genealogy Web site.
Mr. Kadish’s case was linked with that of Jonathan Jay Pollard, the former naval analyst serving a life sentence for leaking documents to Israel around the same time. Mr. Yagur, who is known as Yossi, also received information from Mr. Pollard. At first, Mr. Yagur was not named publicly as the Israeli agent who photographed the documents at Mr. Kadish’s home, but on Tuesday, federal authorities identified him by name as the agent.
The Pollard case has long been a contentious issue between the United States and Israel, whose leaders have argued for his release — a proposal that has been repeatedly rebuffed by American officials.
The prosecution of Mr. Kadish was handled by Iris Lan, an assistant United States attorney in Manhattan, and Kathleen M. Kedian, a trial lawyer from the counterespionage section of the Justice Department.
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