ScienceInsider

by Erik Stokstad

A former government scientist with a top security clearance has been charged with attempted espionage. Stewart David Nozette of Chevy Chase, Maryland, was arrested Monday afternoon and will appear in federal court today.

Nozette helped develop a radar experiment that seemed to have detected water on the moon in 1996. He worked for the White House’s National Space Council from 1989 to 1990. Nozette then spent about 9 years at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s “Advanced Concepts Group” with a high-level security clearance. After leaving LLNL, Nozette ran a company , Alliance for Competitive Technology,which consulted with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, NASA, and the Naval Research Laboratory.

Nozette was arrested after he allegedly gave classified information to an FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence agent in exchange for $11,000. The criminal complaint, posted by Politico, contains partial transcripts of Nozette’s conversations with the FBI agent.

Photo: Pallava Bagla