She’s waited more than six decades to clear her name after being branded a “Red Menace.” Now, 98-year-old Miriam Moskowitz will have to wait a little longer.
Manhattan federal prosecutors told a judge Monday that they need more time to review the retired New Jersey schoolteacher’s petition to overturn her 1950 McCarthy-era conviction in an atomic espionage case.
But Judge Alvin Hellerstein didn’t appear too willing to want to wait much longer, given Moskowitz’s advanced age.
“I look at [her] complaint. It strikes me as straightforward and there are no issues of fact,” Hellerstein warned before ordering the government to submit a filing by Oct. 1.
Moskowitz’s next hearing was scheduled for Nov. 4.
She appeared in court Monday walking slowly with a cane — and said it was the first time she had been in a courtroom since her trial.
Then-government lawyer Roy Cohn, who gained infamy during the McCarthy hearings, helped prosecute her. He called the case a “dry run” for the notorious spy trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
After Monday’s hearing, Moskowitz said she remains upbeat about overturning her conviction, but didn’t believe the feds would drop their case against her right away.
“I think they are obliged to hear [the facts],” Moskowitz said. “This is not just a trivial case.”
She was convicted of lying to a grand jury to protect herself and her boss and then-lover, chemical engineer Abe Brothman, as well as his spy accomplice, Harry Gold.
Gold had testified that Moskowitz knew he and Brothman were plotting to lie to the grand jury about the case.
But six-decade-old grand-jury records unsealed in 2008 showed that Gold had previously told the FBI the opposite many times. Gold fingered her only after the federal government threatened him with the death penalty, Moskowitz alleges.
The frail but feisty Moskowitz of Washington Township, NJ, filed a petition two weeks ago asking that her conviction be vacated based on the newly unsealed records.
“I just want to end my life with a clear name,” she had previously told The Post.
Moskowitz spent two years in a federal prison and was hit with a $10,000 fine after being convicted.
She seemed taken aback Monday by the number of reporters who attended her hearing. When told photographers and television cameras were waiting outside, she borrowed some lipstick from a friend.
“I need an official vindication,” she said.