Anne Pollard Transferred Back to Connecticut Prison

Anne Henderson Pollard, wife of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, has been transferred back to Danbury Federal Prison Camp after spending four months at the Federal Medical Facility in Rochester, Minn.

Pollard, who has served more than 30 months of her five-year sentence for being an accessory to her husband, was moved abruptly from Danbury to Rochester on Jan. 14.

Although a federal magistrate recently declined Pollard’s request for a transfer, ruling that the medical treatment she was receiving at the Rochester facility was adequate, her lawyers were able to reach an agreement with prison authorities to have her returned to Danbury.

Pollard was transferred Tuesday. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Minneapolis authorized the transfer last Friday.

Pollard was the lone female inmate at the Rochester prison.

According to the agreement attorney Nathan Dershowitz reached with prison authorities, Pollard must eat as much as possible. Her weight had dropped to below 90 pounds.

Pollard’s family attributes her inability to eat solid food to a digestive disorder. But prison authorities have charged that Pollard sometimes refuses food and medical treatment.

The Jan. 14 transfer to Rochester was prompted by her medical condition, prison authorities contended.

Dershowitz and Pollard’s father, Bernard Henderson, said she received only limited medical treatment in Rochester.

Henderson said he was happy with the “better conditions.”

Dershowitz said Pollard may now be eligible for “all kinds of furloughs, including medical.”

“My hope is that now that she is back, she will have that determination made, and that she will be in the process of relatively quick release,” he said.