The FBI arrested him on October 19, 2009,[2] charging him with attempted espionage after a sting operation[3] which Nozette's lawyer claims amounted to entrapment.

[4] At trial, Nozette admitted attempting to sell U.S. classified information to someone he believed was an Israeli Mossad operative, but was in reality an undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation employee.

He pleaded guilty to one charge of attempted espionage and was sentenced, under the terms of a plea bargain, to thirteen years in prison.

In the early 1990s, Nozette, as part of the Strategic Defense Initiative's 'Brilliant Pebbles', conceived the idea (and then led the mission) of the Clementine spacecraft as a means to both provide a test bed for the development of lighter, more cost effective advanced space technology, as well as to obtain data for the Moon.

[8] Nozette and colleagues' bistatic radar results from Clementine claimed to support the discovery of water on the south pole of the Moon.

[14] Over the course of his career, Nozette held high level security clearances and worked on sensitive United States nuclear and satellite programs.

[3] He held Top Secret security clearances to study nuclear material with the United States Department of Energy, and was on the National Space Council under President George H. W.

[17][18] Nozette was under investigation by the Justice Department for possible fraudulent billing on a NASA contract by a nonprofit corporation he ran, "Alliance for Competitive Technology".

A folder left for this contact in a post office box contained "information classified as both top secret and secret that concerned US satellites, early warning systems, means of defense or retaliation against large-scale attack, communications intelligence information, and major elements of defense strategy.

"[1] The United States Department of Justice criminal complaint, however, does not charge that "the government of Israel or anyone acting on its behalf committed any offense under U.S.