Summary: One of the surviving members of the Rosenberg espionage case from the 1950s, Miriam Moskowitz, has asked a Manhattan federal judge to throw out her conviction.
Miriam Moskowitz was found guilty of conspiring to deceive a grand jury more than 60 years ago. The jury was investigating Soviet atomic espionage. Moskowitz is now 98 and a retired teacher. She has asked a federal judge to throw away her conviction, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Moskowitz is one of the final living links to the Rosenberg espionage case. She filed court documents in Manhattan federal court this week asking the judge to correct what she calls a “miscarriage of justice from the McCarthy era.”
She was accused of conspiring with her boss at the time, Abraham Brothman, to persuade a courier with the KGB to lie to a grand jury about his connections to espionage. She paid a $10,000 fine and spent two years in prison. Brothman was a chemical engineer in New York.
The courier, Harry Gold, testified that atomic spy David Greenglass supplied nuclear secrets to the Soviets along with Ethel Rosenberg and Julius Rosenberg.
Baker Botts LLP is representing Moskowitz pro bono in the case. They claim that Gold lied to jurors, citing evidence that came to light recently. The lawyers from the firm said that grand jury transcripts that were unsealed in 2008 show that Gold contradicted what he told the FBI back in 1950 about the knowledge of Moskowitz of a conspiracy.
“I”m 98, and I don’t want to depart this world with this thing hanging over me,” Moskowitz said.
