An elderly former US Army engineer was arrested yesterday on charges he fed national defense secrets – including information about nuclear weapons – to the Israeli government more than 20 years ago.
Ben-Ami Kadish, 84, is facing federal conspiracy charges for sneaking up to 100 classified documents out of a US Army arsenal library in New Jersey between 1979 and 1985 and giving them to a scientific attaché for the Israeli consulate general.
Kadish is accused of using his security clearance to get the documents and pass them to the Israeli operative, who was simultaneously receiving information from convicted Pentagon mole Jonathan Pollard, according to a law-enforcement source.
Court papers unsealed yesterday in Manhattan federal court do not identify the diplomat by name, but his job and history fit those of Yosef Yagur, a key figure in the 1985 case that put Pollard behind bars for life.
During questioning by the FBI last month, Kadish admitted he would take documents from the US Army’s Picatinny Arsenal in Dover and bring them to his New Jersey home, where he would secretly meet the Israeli representative, court papers show.
Kadish supplied information about nuclear weaponry, classified as “restricted data,” and papers detailing the US Patriot missile air-defense system and a modified version of the F-15 fighter jet that the United States had sold to another government, according to court papers.
“Kadish did not choose the classified documents that he retrieved,” FBI special agent Lance Ashworth wrote in the complaint, explaining that the Israeli gave him “lists of specific items to obtain from the library.”
The feds caught up with Kadish this year, grilling him in connection with an ongoing grand-jury probe on March 20 and 21, at which time he allegedly admitted to giving the documents to the spy because he believed it “would help Israel.”
The World War II veteran was arrested at home yesterday morning at a gated community for senior citizens in Monroe Township, NJ, where he lives with his wife.
Kadish was released on $300,000 bail.
In exchange for the documents, Kadish told the feds he received gifts – though never cash – and free dinner for his family at a restaurant in the Riverdale section of The Bronx, near where the Israeli spy was living, according to court papers.
Prosecutors would not comment on why Kadish was being charged now.
Additional reporting by Matthew Nestel