Pentagon Analyst Sentenced for Passing Secrets to Israel

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They are being exposed one by one!!


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,5759438.story

From the Los Angeles Times
By Edwin Chen
Times Staff Writer

12:08 PM PST, January 20, 2006

A former Pentagon analyst who slipped classified information to Israel was sentenced today to more than 12 years in prison by a federal judge in Virginia.

Lawrence A. Franklin, who had worked with top Defense Department officials, pleaded guilty in October to three felony counts of giving secrets to an Israeli Embassy official and a pro-Israel lobbying group here.

At the time, Franklin, now 59, told a U.S. District Court judge that he committed the crimes out of frustration with a U.S. policy in the Middle East that he did not detail. In exchange for his guilty pleas, three counts against him were dropped.

In sentencing Franklin, federal Judge T.S. Ellis III said the facts of the case led him to believe that Franklin was motivated primarily by a desire to help the United States, not harm it. ( yeah yeah )

The judge said Franklin believed that the National Security Council was insufficiently concerned with the threat posed by an unspecified Middle Eastern country, presumed to be Iran. Ellis added that Franklin thought that leaking information might persuade the NSC to take more serious action.

During his plea hearing three months ago, Franklin stated that he had received far more information from the Israeli diplomat than he ever disclosed.

Two members of the pro-Israel lobby who since 2003 received information from Franklin — Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, both of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — are scheduled to go on trial later this year. As part of his plea agreement, Franklin agreed to cooperate in those cases.

At one time, Franklin was a Pentagon desk officer who focused on Iran. His case strained relations between the U.S. and Israel.