NJ woman passes on military data, faces 5-year jail

BY A STAFF WRITER
TRENTON, NJ — A North Brunswick woman admitted she sent sensitive military data to India in violation of federal law, using a church website to transmit the information.

Hannah Robert, 49, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the Arms Export Control Act. She faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine when she’s sentenced in June.

She has also agreed to pay $181,000 to the Department of Defense for selling faulty F-15 fighter parts and has consented to forfeit $77,000.

Robert operated two companies out of her home, then in Mount Laurel, that supplied hardware and spare parts to the US military. She also was a part-owner of a company based in India.

For two years beginning in 2010, Robert sent a contact in India drawings of parts for torpedoes used in nuclear submarines as well as drawings of helicopter and F-15 components without first obtaining a required export license.

Robert and her contact in India, identified in court papers as P.R., also sent technical data to the United Arab Emirates. The data was transmitted via the website of a Camden County church Robert attended, for which P.R. had the password.

No one else at the church was aware of Robert’s scheme.

Authorities also say the Indian company Robert partly owned manufactured faulty wing components for F-15s that were sold to the US military. The parts were labelled with the address of Robert’s New Jersey company but not the Indian company where they were actually made.

Because of the faulty parts, the Department of Defense had to repair and re-inspect 47 F-15s at a cost of $150,000, the U.S. Attorney said.

Robert worked at a Burlington County defense contractor until late 2012, where she had access to drawings of thousands of parts covered under arms-export laws. Robert did not disclose the nature of her involvement with her defense companies to her employer.