Monroe Township, NJ – U.S. Jew Who Gave Secrets to Israel Spared Prison

Monroe Township, NJ – A case that surprised many with allegations of espionage and even talk of the death penalty ended Friday with an 85-year-old New Jersey man hobbling out of the federal district courthouse in Manhattan, avoiding prison but fined $50,000.

With harsh words for both the man, Ben-Ami Kadish, and the government, the judge, William H. Pauley III, said prison would “serve no purpose” for a man so old and infirm, but made clear that he had lingering questions about the government’s approach to the case.

Mr. Kadish, who lives with his wife of 57 years in a retirement community in Monroe Township, N.J., said in court that he leaked classified United States military documents to an Israeli agent in the early 1980s.

But he was not arrested until last year, and was allowed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of Israel.

“This offense is a grave one that implicates the national security of the United States,” Judge Pauley said, adding, “Why it took the government 23 years to charge Mr. Kadish is shrouded in mystery.”

He also wondered why Mr. Kadish had been allowed to plead guilty to a single charge that seemed to understate the seriousness of his crime.

“It’s clear,” Judge Pauley said, “that the government could have charged Mr. Kadish with far more serious crimes.”

At one point, Judge Pauley questioned a prosecutor about the 23-year “hiatus,” as he put it, in the bringing of charges.

The prosecutor, Iris Lan, said that it was not until last year that the F.B.I. had been able to “put all the pieces together.”

“There’s no mystery behind it,” Ms. Lan said. “It’s just what happened.”

“It’s a mystery to me,” Judge Pauley said tartly. “I’m wondering what happened.”

Indeed, the gap of time between the activity and Mr. Kadish’s arrest lent an almost anachronistic air to the case, which, in fact, is tangentially tied to the notorious matter of Jonathan Jay Pollard, a former naval analyst who was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for spying for Israel.

Prosecutors have said that the Israeli agent, who photographed the documents at Mr. Kadish’s house, also received classified material from Mr. Pollard.

Phone records reviewed by the F.B.I. showed at least 22 calls from the Israeli agent, who has since been identified as Yosef Yagur, to Mr. Kadish from July through November 1985, according to a criminal complaint.

Mr. Kadish’s lawyer Jack T. Litman said that the government had those records years ago, “and apparently nobody followed up on them at the time.”

Mr. Kadish, a United States Army Air Corps veteran, was born in Connecticut, and moved as a child to what was then Palestine and is now Israel, according to a document filed by his lawyer. He returned to the United States after World War II.

From 1963 until 1990, he worked as a mechanical engineer at the Army’s Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center at the Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, N.J., the complaint said.

When Mr. Kadish, who had a security clearance, was arrested in April 2008 and accused of spying, prosecutors said that he had provided Mr. Yagur with 50 to 100 classified documents, all of which he had borrowed from the arsenal’s library.

One document contained information about nuclear weaponry, another concerned a modified version of an F-15 fighter jet and another pertained to the Patriot missile air defense system, the complaint said. Mr. Kadish has said he did not ask for nor did he receive anything of value for the documents.

“I’m sorry I made a mistake,” Mr. Kadish, standing with the aid of a cane, told the judge before sentencing. “It was a misjudgment. I thought I was helping the state of Israel without harming the United States.”

The prosecutor, Ms. Lan, told the judge that one reason her office had accepted a plea bargain was that Mr. Kadish had met with prosecutors, admitted to his wrongdoing, “and attempted to cooperate.”

A spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington had no comment on the sentencing.

Mr. Kadish sat quietly through much of the proceeding, appearing to doze off briefly at one point. As the hearing ended, Judge Pauley said that he was imposing the $50,000 fine “because you have the ability to pay it, and it can communicate to you something more about the gravity of your offense.”

Judge Pawley ordered that he pay the fine within 60 days.

“No problem,” Mr. Kadish said.