United States v. Jonathan Jay Pollard (Crim. No. 86-0207, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia) is the criminal case resulting from Jonathan Jay Pollard's espionage activities, in which he pleaded guilty on June 4, 1986, before Chief Judge Aubrey E. Robinson Jr. to one count of conspiracy to deliver national defense information to a foreign government. His co-defendant and wife, Anne Henderson Pollard, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to receive national defense information and was sentenced to 5 years of supervised release. Pollard was sentenced to life imprisonment on March 4, 1987, despite the government's plea agreement recommendation for a substantial period of incarceration; the sentence was influenced by a classified ex parte memorandum from Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger describing the damage as 'the worst in history.' The case involved controversies, including alleged government breach of the plea agreement (failure to limit allocution to facts and implicit life recommendation), 'plea wiring' coercing Pollard's plea to protect his wife, unauthorized media interviews by Pollard violating the agreement, and a disproportionate sentence compared to spies for allies. Post-conviction, Pollard's motion to withdraw his plea was denied on September 11, 1990 (747 F. Supp. 797 (D.D.C. 1990)) and affirmed on March 20, 1992 (959 F.2d 1011 (D.C. Cir. 1992)); subsequent habeas petitions and parole challenges were denied through 2006. Pollard was paroled on November 20, 2015, after 30 years, with parole restrictions lifted on November 20, 2020.