Jonathan Pollard: It’s Time to Let Him Go

Jonathan Pollard: It’s Time to Let Him Go

by Jerrold L. Sobel

September 25, 2010

Having been convicted of multiple murders in 1998 one of which the body still has not been found, Loren Herzog was released from Prison in Stockton California this past July, having served less than 10 years for his crimes.

Dec. 7, 1968 Pontiac, Michigan. Having been a suspect in the murders of several women in Michigan, Nolan Ray George was convicted of second degree murder of a woman, Frances Ann Brown. After several mistrials, in 1973 he began serving 17 1/2-25 years in prison. Credited with 8 years, he was released 7 years later. No, this isn’t a transition into a “Law and Order” police story. It’s a cheap way to make a point.

Jonathan Pollard, on Nov. 21, 1985 began serving a life sentence at the Federal Prison in Butler, North Carolina for the crime of espionage. To this date, 25 years later, he still languishes at that facility. To begin with, this isn’t going to be some tear jerk, sugar coated, die for Pollard story. What he did was dastardly. To betray a country whose constitution you’ve sworn to uphold is nothing short of despicable, no matter how righteous the cause. Sanctimonious motivations aside, he allegedly admitted to receiving $10,000 in cash and $1500.00 a month for additional classified material to be given to his Israeli handler, an Israeli Air Force colonel, Aviem Sella. So let there be no doubt, Pollard’s not a choir boy. However, from the outset his plea agreement which was offered by the government and accepted by him was not recognized by the presiding judge.

The terms of the agreement which Pollard signed onto allowed him to plead guilty to: “One count of conspiracy to deliver national defense information to a foreign government.” By doing so, his wife Anne also was allowed to plead out for her complicity in the crime. She served 3 years of a 5 year term and was released. In accordance with the plea, and to avoid life imprisonment, Pollard agreed to cooperate fully with a government espionage assessment team and pledged non-disclosure of sensitive material he had privy to. The judge, Aubrey Robinson Jr. wasn’t having any of it and sentenced him to life. So where are the mitigating factors?

From a legal standpoint, I’m not a lawyer, there might not be any. What is quite clear is that from the time Pollard entered his plea in May 1986 to his sentencing ten months later, the government upped the ante on him, no longer content with the second tier of the espionage statute to which he plead guilty: “to the advantage of a foreign nation,” they went after him on the more severe first: “to the injury of the United States.” The judge simply failed to honor the deal brokered between the defense and the prosecution. Pollard did file one of several appeals that dealt with this issue but was denied in a two to one ruling for failure of his original attorneys to file the appeal in a timely manner. It seems like only common sense that the man should have been allowed to withdraw his plea and take his chances with a jury trial. The whole idea behind the plea was to avoid the life term which he received anyway. Most credible reports claim then Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger, in a 46 page supplemental report contained in a pre-sentencing “Victims Impact Statement, excoriated Pollard and exaggerated the harm caused by his crime. The judge then decreed the maximum sentence, for a crime Pollard did not plea to. Is this justice? Maybe in Iran, but not in this wonderful country. What’s worse, by their own admission in 1994, government sources admit, “no one died as a result of the Pollards.” Think of where you were and all the things you’ve done over the past 25 years, Pollard has been rotting in jail. Did he deserve a stiff sentence? No doubt. Life in prison for selling information to a friendly government. It’s overkill. it’s time to set him free. Most disturbing, his incarceration almost from the beginning became more about politics than justice.