Army spy pleads guilty to conspiracy
An 85-year-old former Army mechanical engineer pleaded guilty to conspiracy Tuesday and admitted he passed classified documents to the Israelis in the 1970s and ’80s.
Ben-ami Kadish told U.S. Magistrate Judge Theodore H. Katz he believed the government promised it would not seek a prison term when he is sentenced Feb. 13. Assistant U.S. Attorney Iris Lan said prosecutors promised only that they would not oppose or challenge a sentence that included no prison time.
Kadish, who lives in Monroe Township, N.J., pleaded guilty to only one of the four conspiracy charges he originally faced.
Kadish was accused of taking home classified documents from 1979 to 1985 when he worked at the Picatinny Arsenal in Dover Township. The government said he let an Israeli agent photograph documents, including information about nuclear weapons, a modified version of an F-15 fighter jet and the U.S. Patriot missile air defense system.
Las Vegas, N.M.
Church leader going to prison
The leader of a small religious sect was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in prison for sexual misconduct with two teenage female followers.
Wayne Bent, 67, who claimed the encounters were spiritual, not sexual, was convicted this month of criminal sexual contact with a minor and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Judge Gerald Baca imposed the maximum sentence of 18 years but suspended eight years. He will have to serve at least 8 1/2 years before becoming eligible for release.
Bent, who calls himself Michael Travesser, is the leader of The Lord Our Righteousness Church. Its almost four dozen adult followers live in a compound called Strong City in a rural area of northeastern New Mexico.
A jury this month convicted Bent for lying in bed with naked 14- and 16-year-old sisters in separate incidents in 2006. But Bent maintained Tuesday that no crime was committed.
Richmond, Va.
Lobbyist sues New York Times
A Washington lobbyist sued the New York Times for $27 million Tuesday over an article that she says gave the false impression she had an affair with Sen. John McCain in 1999.
The newspaper stood by the story.
Vicki L. Iseman filed the defamation suit in U.S. District Court in Richmond. It also names as defendants the Times’ executive editor, its Washington bureau chief and four reporters.
Iseman represented telecommunications companies before the Senate Commerce Committee, which McCain chaired. In February, as McCain was seeking the Republican presidential nomination, the Times reported that McCain aides once worried the relationship between Iseman and McCain had turned romantic.
The article said that both McCain and Iseman denied any romantic relationship, but the lawsuit says most readers would find that obligatory.
Berlin, Vt.
Winning ticket found in trash
A Vermont man is $650,000 richer after retrieving a lottery ticket he had been given for Christmas but accidentally threw away.
Steven LeClair of Richford got the ticket for the Dec. 24 Tri-State Megabucks drawing as a gift from his mother. But it was in a gift bag that LeClair threw out, not knowing it was inside.
Vermont Lottery spokeswoman Hadley Melendy says LeClair’s wife found out two days later that the only winning ticket had been sold at a market in Richford. So LeClair went through the trash at his home and found it.