Pollard Says Attorney Failed Him

Middle East Newsline - September 22, 2000

[SEE Justice4JP Note Below]

WASHINGTON [MENL] -- Jonathan Pollard, the U.S. naval analyst sent to life in prison for passing military secrets to Israel, says his attorney failed to represent him against false government charges during sentencing in 1987.

In a motion for resentencing to the U.S. district court in Washington, Pollard said he was inadequately represented by his first attorney, Richard Hibey. He said Hibey's "inadequate and unprofessional handling of my sentencing ... deprived me of my constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel."

The reference was to the 1987 sentencing by a U.S. district court judge who rejected an unspecified plea bargain and sent Pollard to life in prison. The judge had received a classified declaration from then-Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who [FALSELY] accused Pollard of treason and being the most damaging spy of the several captured in 1986. [J4JP Note:Jonathan Pollard was never accused, indicted or convicted of treason. Weinberger's accusation was a non-legal emotional opinion not formal indictment. It sent a message to the judge calling for the maximum sentence in violation of the government's plea bargain. SEE Facts Page.]

Pollard said Hibey never appealed the sentence nor told his client that such a notice must be filed within 10 days. He also said that Hibey never asked for an adjournment of the sentence after the Weinberger motion was presented. The attorney also failed to dispute the Weinberger declaration.

"By those failures, he doomed me to life in prison without the opportunity for direct appellate review of my sentence or of the process that led to it," Pollard said. "By this motion, I seek only that my sentence be vacated and that I be resentenced at a fair proceeding in which I am represented by competent counsel."

Most of Hibey's fees, Pollard said, were paid by the Israeli government.

The formal naval analyst has served nearly 15 years of a life sentence.

Pollard said he maintained his part of the plea bargain by fully cooperating with U.S. authorities. He said he spent hundreds of hours being debriefed by government agents and prosecutors and took numerous polygraph tests to verify his testimony.

"Immediately after the court imposed sentence on March 4, 1987, I was taken to the holding cell next to the courtroom," Pollard said. "Mr. Hibey told me I would be in jail for 30 years. His parting words to me were, 'you can handle it.' I never saw him or spoke to him again."


Justice4JP Adds:

The new Pollard legal documents reveal a tale of government misconduct, lies, false allegations and breaches of the plea agreement, inexplicably aided and abetted by a the failure of a high profile Washington defense attorney to perform at the most minimal level of competence to defend his client's constitutional rights to due process.

The documents show how Pollard's situation deteriorates even further when a second high profile Washington attorney takes over from the first one and has to choose between safe-guarding his colleague's reputation or saving his client, Jonathan Pollard. He chooses to cover for his colleague's failures and mounts an appeal for Pollard that is doomed to failure from the outset.

For reasons that are "inexplicable" the former defense attorneys allowed a situation to be created which set Jonathan up, and permitted the government to continue its lies and misconduct with impunity for the next 13 years. Everyone knew exactly what was happening but they all kept their mouths shut, all looked the other way.

In in a recent interview with FOX News, Jonathan Pollard's wife stated that when the truth about the Pollard case is fully revealed "...it will make the Wen Ho Lee case look like small change."