Lawyer: Pollard is ‘Not a Free Man’

Jonathan Pollard’s lawyer Eliot Lauer on Sunday decried the U.S. Parole Commission’s harsh restrictions imposed on his client, especially the imposing of a 7:00pm-7:00am curfew.

Speaking at the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) Louis D. Brandeis Award Dinner at the Grand Hyatt in NY Sunday evening, Lauer said that while Pollard has been released from prison, “he is not free.”

“The Parole Commission has imposed unnecessary restrictions on Jonathan’s parole: 7:00pm to 7:00am curfew, a GPS tracking 24/7, movement restricted to a small portion in NYC, and computer monitoring of the internet at home and at work,” he unveiled. “The curfew makes it impossible to attend evening religious services, and makes it impossible to participate in Shabbat dinners or holiday dinners with friends or family. It also – in NYC – makes it virtually impossible to conduct any normal profession.”

On Friday, upon his release, Pollard filed a lawsuit in federal court in New York seeking to end what his attorneys called the “unreasonable and unlawful’’ parole conditions imposed on him. “The sole justification the Parole Commission gave for these restriction is ‘they are needed to deter from further criminal conduct.’ And yet, having being required to grant parole once it became clear there was no reasonable probability for further criminal conduct because the information, the extent Jonathan had still in his head, is 30 or 31 years old,” Lauer asserted. “Having reached that conclusion and granted parole, it is simply preposterous and disingenuous.”

The attorney pleaded for the community’s continuous support in the campaign for Pollard’s freedom.