Detroit, MI – A military engineer accused in 1997 of passing secrets to the Israelis sued the Defense Department, the Army and the people behind the charges today in U.S. District Court in Detroit.
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The lawsuit, filed on behalf of David Tenenbaum, 51, of Southfield said the military deprived him of his constitutional right to hold the military accountable for falsely accusing him of espionage by using the federal government’s state secrets privilege to kill his earlier lawsuit against the government. A federal judge dismissed the earlier lawsuit in 2002.
The latest suit, which seeks more than $200 million in damages, said the military asserted the privilege “in reckless disregard of the fact that no state secrets existed … because there was never any evidence against Tenenbaum.”
Tenenbaum was suspected of but never formally charged with espionage involving his job at the U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) in Warren. But the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General said in a report last July that Tenenbaum was singled out because he is Jewish.
The report said Tenenbaum wore a yarmulke and adhered to strict Jewish dietary rules rather than join coworkers for lunch at restaurants. Colleagues questioned why he was allowed to leave work early on Fridays to prepare for the Jewish Sabbath, the report said.
Coworkers said Tenenbaum spent too much time associating with Israeli contacts, made his own travel arrangements for overseas trips and stayed in hotels away from colleagues, which TACOM officials regarded as telltale signs of spying, the report said.
The FBI looked into the complaints but found no evidence of wrongdoing.
Tenenbaum returned to work in 1998 after a 14-month paid leave of absence. Though his clearance was restored and elevated in 2003 after a 4-year legal battle, he has been relegated to lesser duties and shunned by coworkers, said his lawyer, Mayer Morganroth, of Southfield.
Morganroth said last year that a bogus investigation prompted the Army to scrap Tenenbaum’s 1995 project to improve the armor on Humvees, a decision that proved fatal to American troops who were sent to Iraq and Afghanistan in woefully inadequate fighting vehicles.
I hope you win millions of dollars; after that default in your house payments so American gov. Can pay hahahahah. I hate America this is an imbarssment to this nation for what they stand fir and everyday you hear stories that are unreal like this other one I heard today bout tommy dolan son who was shot in his front yard in Texas just fir being black in a white upper class neighborhood. I mean its amazing. Every story you can’t make this stuff up
that’s what the defense department deserves midah kineged midah
another Pollared case? when will it end
I can’t say I blame the Army. I mean if the guy wants to separate himself from everyone he works with and does all sorts of suspicious things I can’t blame his coworkers for thinking the guy is doing something or at the very least is strange. If you are a dati modern orthodox guy in the workplace you have to fit in and be a diplomat. You can’t just separate yourself and sit alone and sulk. That’s no way to be religious. That gives a bad impression of what a MO guy is. I feel bad for the guy but this is just going to anger everyone in the Army and then no frum Yid will ever work there again. That stinks for everyone. Maybe he should have just made aliya and found a job with an Israeli company.
David is an amazing person, i really hope this whole ordeal will be over for him soon.
I would expect he’ll lose this case. Moreover, I think he should lose this case.
Opening up clearance investigations to litigation is something I find quite troubling.
Sadly, a big part of the reason he fell under suspicion was the use by Israeli operatives of American Jews as spies.
if he wins, i promise he will have a new best friend!-he is not modern orthodox, by the way, and he learns more every day than half the guys in lakewood learn between their cigarette and coffee breaks.
Some of the comments here are ludicrous. This fellow was singled out for improper investigation and discrimination solely because he was an observant Jew. There are clear anti-semitic aspects to this case, which were not mentioned in the brief story above. People who do not like Jews did their best to make this guy’s life hell, including raids on his home on Shabbos, following him and his wife with unmarked cars. and all sorts of petty and scary harrassment. And yet there are idiots who pontificate here that the government was correct (even though the Defense Dept itself concluded there was nothing to this), he should have fit in better, blah blah blah. What a bunch of morons!
I work for a Fortune 500 company. I wear a yarmulke, generally don’t go out to lunch with my coworkers, and leave early on Fridays in the winter. When I travel on business, I make my own hotel arrangements so that I am closer to a shul, especially if I have to stay over on shabbos. Generally, these hotels are less expensive than the ones my coworkers stay in.
At my hometown shul, I sometimes speak with Israelis.
Good thing I don’t work for a defense firm, or else I’d have the same problem as David.
To #1 : No Pollard is Guilty. Even his defenders acknowledge he spied only “it was for an Ally”. David Tenenbaum is completely innocent. Please don’t even mention them together.
All I was saying is that a frum guy has to be very diplomatic in the workplace. To most Gentiles the frum way of life is very unusual. I know how easy it is to just wall yourself off from all the people at work. In many positions you can do that and just be called productive and a Nose to the grindstone kind of worker. But if you are frum and do that people will think you are anti-social, weird, aloof, strange, hateful or all of the above. Look most people in many offices are the opposite of what we would in many cases associate with so I know how hard it is. All I am saying is that you have to be friendly and explain things or they will think you are conspiring. Evidently, this guy was such a lomdin and tzaddik according to the above commentor that it sure is strange he was working in that job ! I will even be more controversial and say that he may have brought this whole thing on himself if he acted like a misfit. I don’t know him but if he acted like a misfit he caused his problem. Sure they came down on him like a ton of bricks. That’s what happens when his coworkers thought he was a weirdo. What was he doing? Sitting at his desk and reading a blatt of Gemara on his lunch hour and coffee breaks in an Army office? That might do it my friends. Imagine an religious Muslim guy reading his koran at his desk chanting away. That would freak me out too. Think about it.
If you think that America or any other country likes Jews, wake up. If it were up to them all Jews would be gone. Yeh, even here in williamsburg or BP or Flatbush.
5 towns or Teaneck, anywhere. So maybe it time to act accordingly and live like our fathers and mothers lived years and eons ago. Remember, these things go in cycles. Check out your ( Our) history.
Lots of your comments are stupid and hateful ….this guy spend years to become an engineer he got a job with the army and got accused of spying for israel they made his life a living hell if it would been an arab it would of never happend and you guys have the. Chutzpah to say that the army was right you guys are insane and don’t have the brains to become an engineer so you try to eat up the guy who accomplished much more then you …shame on you
“Morganroth said last year that a bogus investigation prompted the Army to scrap Tenenbaum’s 1995 project to improve the armor on Humvees, a decision that proved fatal to American troops who were sent to Iraq and Afghanistan in woefully inadequate fighting vehicles.”
Whatever the circumstances of the case may be, this comment is pure speculation.
David Tenenbaum is a very nice and friendly guy. He may not have eaten with his co-workers or traveled with them but he is a warm, sociable and pleasant guy, knowledgeable and conversant in everyday life. He is a very bright guy and definately knew how to conduct himself with other people in a social setting and in the workplace. He is extremely liked and respected in the community in which he lives. There is no shyleh that they were looking to find something to pin on him. David is a guy who makes a Kiddush Hashem where ever he goes because he is extremely ehrlich and sincere and comes accross that way to everyone, even goyim. It is evident that the charges against him were totally bogus, and the government finding proves exactly that. Anti semitism is alive and well in America and even when you’re working for Uncle Sam. The government made his and his families life a living hell for many years. He did not bring this upon himself and deserves every dime that I pray he gets from this lawsuit. If this happened to him it could happen to anyone. Aside from the above he is also a true Ben Torah and ehrliche Yid who would probably put more than half of “the yeshiva world” to shame.