NEW YORK (AP) – A 98-year-old New Jersey woman lost her bid Thursday to persuade a judge to erase her 1950 conviction for conspiracy to obstruct justice in the run-up to the atomic spying trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein rejected Miriam Moskowitz’s unusual request immediately after hearing oral arguments, saying her lawyers could not show that transcripts of grand jury statements by the lone witness against her would have changed her trial’s result. As he left the bench, he wished her well and told her it was a pleasure to have her in his court.
Moskowitz, who lives in Washington Township in Bergen County, New Jersey, served a two-year prison sentence after her conspiracy conviction.
“OK, that’s the end,” a cheerful Moskowitz, walking with a cane toward spectators, told a film crew that has been following her. “You can finish your documentary now.”
Outside court, she said she was disappointed and referenced the McCarthy era, when fear of Communism was rampant in the United States and a blacklist made it hard for some to find work.