Anne Henderson Pollard took the witness stand in her own defense on last week, the first time she has testified in court since her initial incarceration in the maximum security federal prison in Lexington, Ky.
A U.S. magistrate was expected to decide this week whether Pollard has been subjected to cruel and unusual punishment by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, or if her medical complaints are exaggerated to generate public sympathy for her husband, convicted spy Jonathan Pollard.
Testifying Feb. 16, Anne Pollard complained of a lack of medical treatment, and her deteriorating relationship with Dr. Martha Grogan, medical director of the Federal Medical Center here, who is Pollard’s treating physician.
She suggested their relationship worsened after two articles on her medical condition appeared in The New York Times in the summer of 1988.
According to Pollard, Grogan called the Times’ stories a “pack of lies” and became “abrupt, short and unpleasant.”
Pollard, who said she was 5 feet, 3 inches tall and weighed 89 pounds, claimed she was brought here abruptly last month because a visitor’s camera accidentally went off at a prison facility in Danbury, Conn.
Prison officials said she was moved for medical reasons, citing continued loss of weight and lack of improvement in her physical condition.
A 24-hour watch, which had been placed on Pollard since she came to Rochester, was removed Feb. 14, two days before her testimony.
In addition, the court granted her attorneys the right to private consultation with their client, unmonitored by the Bureau of Prisons.
The 28-year-old Pollard said she “would be the happiest person in the world” if the court allowed her to see her private physician, who practices in Chicago.
DETERIORATING CONDITION
But U.S. Attorney Robert Small said at the hearing that Pollard’s condition had been deteriorating long before her imprisonment, even when treated by doctors with whom she had a good relationship.
He said she received medical treatment during 88 percent of the 709 days of incarceration, and had been seen by 35 physicians, including 22 from the Mayo Clinic.
Small said doctors from Mayo diagnosed her as having irritable bowel syndrome, a serious but relatively common ailment that is not life-threatening.
The government argued that Pollard has consistently refused to be treated by doctors in Rochester as an “unconscious desire to be ill” in order to generate public support for a reduced sentence for her husband.
“An improvement of her medical conditions will lead to disappointment by some of her supporters,” said Small, which “will further result in a loss of a reason to supply publicity for her husband.”
Pollard’s attorneys, however, claimed that the government had “prescribed stress” for Pollard by moving her to hostile surroundings at the Federal Medical Center here.
Doctors on both sides admitted stress could worsen her condition.
Attorney Small put the onus for treatment on Pollard. “When Anne Pollard decides to get better, Anne Pollard will get better,” Small said in his summation.
RELIGIOUS NECKLACES REMOVED
Pollard testified that when she was transferred here last month from prison in Danbury, Conn., she was told she could not wear two religious necklaces.
She said prison officials took a “chai” necklace from her and informed her that it was “probably thrown away.” Pollard wore a Magen David necklace throughout the hearing.
In addition, she complained that religious books and photos of her husband were taken from her, and that she has not been able to receive a letter from her husband in two years.
Pollard also retracted previous statements she had made in a November 1988 broadcast of CBS-TV’s “60 Minutes”0020in an interview with Mike Wallace. In that interview, Pollard had compared the Federal Medical Center facilities to the Auschwitz death camp.
“As a Jewess, I’m very remorseful I compared anything to Auschwitz,” said Pollard. “The comment was taken completely out of context. I was trying to describe that I had been mistreated medically.”
Pollard has served more than two years of two concurrent five-year sentences. She was convicted as an accessory after the fact in her husband’s spy activities for Israel.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
