LASTEST ON AIPAC SPY CASE

Details of a Plot Unveiled in Case Against Franklin BY ELI LAKE - Staff Reporter of the Sun June 14, 2005

WASHINGTON - An analyst for the Pentagon, Lawrence Franklin, conspired to funnel classified information to Israel during a series of meetings with two lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and a top diplomat from the Israeli Embassy, according to a grand jury indictment that was unsealed yesterday.

The indictment says Mr. Franklin sought the help of a senior lobbyist for Aipac in getting a job at the National Security Council; that he enlisted the Israeli diplomat to write a letter for his daughter to ease her travels in the Middle East, and that he discussed with that diplomat weapons tests for a Middle Eastern country. Coffees were sipped, sandwiches purchased, and at one point the Israeli diplomat gave Mr. Franklin a gift card.

The grand jury's indictment charges Mr. Franklin, who has served as a desk officer on Iran at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, with six counts, including mishandling classified information, communicating defense information to individuals not authorized to receive it, and, most serious, "a conspiracy to communicate classified information to agent and representative of a foreign government, without specific authorization."

Mr. Franklin, 58, pleaded innocent yesterday to all six counts against him. "Mr. Franklin entered a plea of not guilty and he is prepared to take this to trial," his lawyer, Plato Cacheris, told The New York Sun yesterday. U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III yesterday set a trial date for September 6.

WASN'T PLATO CACHERIS ONE OF MONICA LEWINSKY'S LAWYERS?