Fla. terrorism prosecutors benefited from 3 trials
MIAMI (AP) -- Learning from two previous mistrials, federal prosecutors changed their strategy to win hard-fought convictions against five men who plotted to destroy Chicago's Sears Tower and bomb FBI offices, legal experts and attorneys said Wednesday.
Jurors in the third trial on Tuesday convicted ringleader Narseal Batiste and four others on charges of plotting with an FBI informant posing as an al-Qaida emissary to use bombings to start an anti-government insurrection. They face sentences in July of between 30 and 70 years.
"The government is able to fix the mistakes it made in the past and is able to carefully craft responses to defense arguments it heard at the first trial," said Miami defense attorney David O. Markus, who was not involved in the so-called "Liberty City Six" case.
In the previous trials, prosecutors focused on Batiste's threatening words captured on FBI tapes and evidence such as lists he gave the informant of items the group was seeking, such as specific weapons, boots and vehicles. Each time, Batiste claimed that his terrorism talk and lists were faked to get money for himself.
The prosecutors in the latest trial, Jacqueline Arango and Richard Gregorie, were expecting Batiste's responses and revised their questioning of witnesses to refute them. Witnesses including two FBI informants agreed Batiste wanted money, but this time said the cash was for weapons and supplies to carry out his terrorist mission.
They also used Batiste's own admiring comments about a past Chicago terrorism figure named Jeff Fort to draw parallels between the two. Fort, who has no direct connection with Batiste, was convicted in 1987 of conspiring with Libya to commit terrorist acts.
While Fort was only mentioned in passing by prosecutors previously, this time they called as an expert witness a former Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent to testify about Fort and his Chicago gangs, the Black P. Stones or El Rukns.
"You're giving these people three bites at the apple. These are experienced prosecutors," said Richard Houlihan, attorney for 25-year-old Naudimar Herrera who was cleared of all charges. Another group member was acquitted after the first trial.
Prosecutors declined to comment on their strategy because sentencing has yet to take place.
When Batiste and the others were arrested in June 2006, then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales held a Washington news conference to describe the group as an example of "home grown terrorists" that represented a new front in the war against al-Qaida. The case was praised as an example of the FBI's new, post-Sept. 11 strategy of disrupting potential terrorist plots at the earliest possible stages.
But testimony at all three trials showed that most of the evidence was just talk -- driven by the two well-coached FBI informants -- and that Batiste never took steps to acquire weapons or explosives needed to pull off such major attacks. He did supply an informant known as "Brother Mohammed" with lists of items he wanted, and members of the group took pictures of potential Miami targets such as the FBI office and downtown courthouses.
That was enough for the FBI to take them seriously, without apology. "We identified and disrupted a terrorist threat, and as a result our community and nation are a much safer place," Jonathan I. Solomon, FBI agent in charge of the Miami field office, said after the guilty verdicts.
Former Texas U.S. Attorney Matthew Orwig, who has closely followed the case, said the Liberty City convictions don't represent a ringing endorsement of the early prevention strategy, which can suffer from a lack of concrete evidence.
"Any time the government has to prosecute a case three times, it's an indication there is a problem," Orwig said. "The government needs to analyze and do some soul-searching as to why these cases don't come to a quicker resolution, and why jurors seem to be so skeptical."
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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