Sears Tower terror case going to jury
MIAMI -- Little evidence exists that six men were involved in an alleged plot to topple the Sears Tower and bomb FBI offices, their lawyers said in closing arguments Friday.
One by one, the attorneys sought to distance the men from their alleged leader, Narseal Batiste, whose voice and image appear on the vast majority of the thousands of FBI recordings made over an eight-month investigation.
"You can't hold Mr. Phanor responsible for the words of Mr. Batiste," said Roderick Vereen, who represents Stanley Grant Phanor, 32.
Batiste claims he fabricated the Sears Tower plot and went along with the FBI bombing idea in an attempt to con $50,000 out of a man posing as an al-Qaida operative. That man, known as Brother Mohammed to the group, was actually a paid FBI informant.
"There are no real terrorists here," said Nathan Clark, attorney for Rotschild Augustine, 24. "There was never any evidence of terrorism."
After a nearly two-month trial, jurors were scheduled to begin deliberations in the case Monday, following a final rebuttal from prosecutors.
The so-called "Liberty City Seven" each face up to 70 years in prison if convicted of four terrorism-related conspiracy charges, including providing material support to al-Qaida and plotting to wage war against the United States.
Prosecutors contend that Batiste's co-defendants were his trusted inner circle, part of an extremist sect known as the Moorish Science Temple that sought an alliance with al-Qaida to commit terror attacks and spark a broader anti-U.S. rebellion. They all took a loyalty oath to al-Qaida in March 2006 that was captured on FBI video.
"They were his followers. They were his soldiers," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacqueline Arango said Thursday. "They wanted their own form of government."
The men's attorneys, however, painted a far different picture, contending that their clients knew nothing of Batiste's dealings with the FBI informant. The men worked construction jobs with Batiste and were interested in studying religion and Moorish doctrine, they said.
The loyalty oath wasn't taken as a serious pledge by the group to become violent terrorists, said Joel DeFabio, attorney for 32-year-old Lyglenson Lemorin.
"To say the words, you have to mean them. You have to have specific intent to do what those words mean. I submit to you those words mean nothing," DeFabio said.
The FBI found no explosives, military weaponry or definitive attack plans when the group's headquarters, known as "the Embassy," was searched in June 2006. But prosecutors contend the group had become radicalized and intended to mount a terrorist attack if possible, going so far as to take reconnaissance photos of Miami's FBI office and federal buildings downtown.