Posted on 12/04/2014 6:50:04 PM PST by Coleus
Miriam Moskowitz has been called a lot of things in her 98 years of life — feisty, aggressive and possessing a violent temper, among them. But the one label that bothers her most is spy for the former Soviet Union — a moniker given to her by the government. That label still remained Thursday after the retired Washington Township math teacher lost a bid in federal court in Manhattan to clear her name — 60 years after she served prison time and paid thousands of dollars in fines. Moskowitz had asked a judge earlier this year to reconsider her 1950 conviction in light of new evidence — witness testimony to a grand jury that her attorney argued established reasonable doubt in a co-defendant’s story implicating her — that were previously withheld and emerged in 2008.
But the court ruled it was too late. However, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein decided not to make her wait for his written opinion, out of respect for Moskowitz, “whose time on earth is precious.” Hellerstein criticized Moskowitz for waiting six years to petition the court to overturn the conviction. He said her arguments didn't meet the legal standard for throwing out the conviction and that the grand jury statements and FBI interviews with a convicted Soviet spy were not strong enough to suggest the co-defendant had credibility issues.
Dressed in dark grey pants and a light grey sweater, her white, neck-length hair styled in a bob, Moskowitz exited the courtroom with her family by her side. “Too bad,” Moskowitz said in the hallway as she walked arm-in-arm with her nephew toward the bank of elevators. She called Hellerstein’s decision a reflection of the prejudice of the McCarthy era — a time in U.S. history when government officials allegedly employed nefarious methods and faulty evidence in accusing American citizens of being communist sympathizers capable of selling government secrets to the USSR during the Cold War.
Moskowitz said she didn’t plan on pursuing another appeal: “That’s it. You can’t do anything more.” Moskowitz, then a 34-year-old secretary for a chemical engineering company, was originally convicted of conspiring with two men — one her boss and another a former lover — to lie to a grand jury investigating allegations of theft of U.S. atomic secrets. She served two years in federal prison and paid a $10,000 fine, which would be equivalent to $100,000 today.
Robert Maier of the firm Baker Botts, who represented Moskowitz pro bono, said his client didn’t get a shot at a fair defense because her conviction was based solely on the grand jury statements and FBI interviews of Harry Gold — Moskowitz’s former lover — that were not available for use in cross-examination by her original attorneys. Gold was also charged in 1950 of conspiring to obtain nuclear secrets for the former Soviet Union.
As a condition of her 1950 conviction, Maier also argued, his client has been prohibited from serving as a juror in any U.S. court of law. But she has retained the right to vote and, if she chose to, hold public office. “The entirety of the evidence here was Harry Gold — that’s what makes his prior statements so much more compelling, so much more powerful for a cross examiner to have to use,” Maier told the judge Thursday of statements he said were uncorroborated by other witnesses.
Hellerstein was sympathetic to the idea that any diligent attorney would have sought to use the grand jury testimony statements. But in issuing his decision, he cast doubt that Moskowitz would ever be seated on a jury because she has difficulty hearing. As Thursday’s proceeding began, Hellerstein — seated about 15 feet away from Moskowitz — ask questions that Maier bent down to repeat before his client responded.
Hellerstein called it a “failure” that Moskowitz waited until this year to clear her name and seemed to agree with an assistant federal prosecutor’s argument that “the absence of this information doesn’t seem to change her culpability” in Gold’s activities. Moskowitz scoffed at the judge’s belief that she could afford to hire an attorney when she stumbled upon secret grand jury testimony after its release in a 2008. The documents came to light following a judicial review of the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted of passing nuclear secrets to the former Soviet Union and executed in 1953.
“He forgot, when you hire a lawyer you have to pay them,” Moskowitz said. “It would have taken a great deal of money and I didn’t have it to approach a lawyer. And I don’t have a lawyer on my payroll, as he assumed. So I had to wait.” Moskowitz, who is said to be the last living victim of McCarthyism and has written a memoir about her experience — “Phantom Spies, Phantom Justice,” — didn’t say much during the proceeding, but had plenty to say when it was over. “My 98-year-old life goes on — and it’s not affected one way or the other except that I am disappointed,” she said smiling.
Moskowitz’s sunny disposition seemed to delight everyone in a small assembly of reporters that trailed her as she left the courthouse. Though she uses a walking cane and asked reporters to repeat their questions with more volume, at 98, she’s more tech-savvy than some might assume. “If you email me, then I can email a statement to you,” Moskowitz said, promising to issue one in “couple of days.”
figures she’s a teacher - a former spy, traitor, communist, convict, I bet she fit right in with her peers and the union.
spy for the soviets but allowed to retain her voting rights.
sounds truly screwy. but stranger things have happened I suppose.
Aw, she’s a nice old lady, couldn’t have been a Soviet spy, yadda yadda, freep all that. Even bad people get old, if they don’t die first. It doesn’t make them not-bad people.
“Former spy...”?
No!!! She is a convicted spy.
That tells me two things - 1. she did it; and 2. she's still too proud of it to deny her involvement.
And it's lovely how she "delights everyone in a small assembly of reporters that trailed her as she left the courthouse."
What a shock, the journalists are giggling little commie groupies.
She should have asked Putin to pay for a lawyer for her. Professional courtesy for her former work for the KGB.
Maybe there is, or ought to be, a permanent forfeit of citizenship status for espionage.
But if not and, if she’s beyond the time stipulated for her sentence, she can vote— several times if she’s a dimocrat.
Seriously, I think the principle is: if the debt is paid, it’s paid—if it’s paid.
Griping about the lawyer is something else; welcome back to the US, Miriam. You could have done it yourself or sold your story to some advocacy group and another thing: how is it you have money now that you didn’t have 8 years ago?
Sounds like the press was as excited to meet a genuine soviet spy as a kid meeting Babe Ruth would have been back in the 30s. "What an honor," you can almost hear them saying. "Please sign my copy of "Das Kapital!"
once a commie always a commie.....she hasn’t renounced anything and all she did was say that her ‘lover’ Gold lied on her. She should have tried that at her original trial
McCarthy is right again!
Because — SHE WAS A SPY.
“Miriam MOSKOWitz”
Enough for me to convict, but I’m sure they had a lot more than even that.
Democratic egalitarianism has led the United States to lose its will to survive.
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