July 29/30, 2006 -- The forgotten U.S. military intelligence deserter. Lt. Col. Jeremiah Matysse was a full-time Army Reserve officer who commanded the Army Reserve Intelligence Support Center at Camp Bullis in San Antonio, Texas. In 2000, after Matysse's wife alerted Army security personnel that her husband was having an extra-marital affair with an Israeli national named Rikki Nir, the Army re-assigned Matysse to the 90th Reserve Support Group in San Antonio. On August 8, 2000, Matysse failed to report for duty at his San Antonio unit. Matysse was no where near his San Antonio unit or Texas, he was in Mitzpeh Ramon in southern Israel. Matysse gambled that the Israeli government, which normally refuses to extradite its citizens to other countries to face criminal prosecution, would give him protection. U.S. intelligence, already burned by a major compromise of classified data by U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk (who had his security clearance suspended), was in no mood to play around with the defection of a U.S. military intelligence officer to Israel. The CIA and Pentagon immediately turned up the heat on the Israelis to return Matysse to the United States. Born Curtis Banker, Jr., Matysse had converted from Catholicism to Habad Hasidic Judaism in ten years prior and was eligible to become an Israeli citizen. Matysse had, in fact, applied for Israeli citizenship shortly after his arrival in Israel. Nir and U.S. Army counter-intelligence officials believed that Matysse had passed "information" to Israel. During his career, Matysse had been stationed at U.S. intelligence posts in Fort Huachuca, Arizona; northern Virginia; Croatia; and South Korea.
The Jerusalem Post labeled Matysse the "convert spy." Later in August 2000, Matysse boarded a plane from Tel Aviv to Newark after being questioned in Petah Tikvah, near Tel Aviv, by special Israeli police from the International Crimes Unit and an intelligence official from the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv. Matysse's Israeli lawyer claimed his client was kidnapped by Israeli police and forcibly returned to the United States. But in a bizarre twist, Nir claimed that Matysse told her that he had crossed the Israeli border into Syria and spent time in Damascus before crossing back into Israel and being detained by Israeli police. Nir also claimed that Matysse, before his arrival in Israel, had mailed classified documents to Israel that he later placed in safety deposit boxes in a number of Israeli banks
Matysse was not charged with espionage but for being absent without leave and conduct unbecoming an officer. Some right-wing Israeli politicians demanded that Matysse not be returned to the United States without swapping him for jailed Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard. Matysse's punishment was rather light. He received non-judicial punishment from Fort Knox, Kentucky Commanding General Maj. Gen B. B. Bell and was ordered to the Fort Knox Regional Confinement Facility and he worked in the office of the Fort Knox Judge Advocate General as a legal aide, a strange assignment for someone who had violated Army regulations and, possibly, national security laws.
What top secrets went out the door from Camp Bullis to Israel in 2000?
Matysse's liaisons with the Israelis took place at the same time that hundreds of Israeli "art students" and "movers" were spotted casing U.S. military and other sensitive installations across the United States, particularly in Texas and Florida.
After his return to the United States, there was little follow-up news about Matysse.