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Man pleads not guilty in Oakland bank bomb case
Legal Information |
2013/02/20 15:57
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A 28-year-old former Marine has pleaded not guilty to charges that he tried to blow up an Oakland bank with a car bomb.
The Oakland Tribune reports Matthew Aaron Llaneza of San Jose entered the plea Friday in federal court. If convicted, he could face life in prison for attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.
LLaneza's attorney says his client was found to suffer from significant mental illness but was competent to stand trial.
Authorites say Llaneza tried to blow up a Bank of America branch last month and ignite a civil war by blaming the bombing on anti-government militias.
LLaneza has been held in jail since he was caught in an FBI sting operation involving an agent posing as a member of the Taliban. |
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Bin Laden's son-in-law: Pleads not guilty in NY
Legal Information |
2013/02/14 15:56
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Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, the charismatic al-Qaida spokesman, fundraiser and son-in-law to Osama bin Laden, is likely to have a vast trove of knowledge about the terror network's central command but not much useful information about current threats or plots, intelligence officials and other experts say.
Abu Ghaith pleaded not guilty Friday to conspiring to kill Americans in propaganda videos that warned of further assaults against the United States as devastating as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Believed to be more of a strategic player in bin Laden's inner circle than an operational plotter, Abu Ghaith would be the highest-ranking al-Qaida figure to stand trial on U.S. soil since 9/11. Intelligence officials say he may be able to shed new light on al-Qaida's inner workings — concerning al-Qaida's murky dealings in Iran over the past decade, for example — but probably will have few details about specific or imminent ongoing threats.
He gave U.S. officials a 22-page statement after his Feb. 28 arrest in Jordan, according to prosecutors. They would not describe the statement.
Bearded and balding, Abu Ghaith said little during the 15-minute hearing in U.S. District Court in New York — in lower Manhattan just blocks from Ground Zero — and displayed none of the finger-wagging or strident orations that marked his propaganda in the days and months after 9/11.
Through an interpreter, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan asked whether he understood his rights. Abu Ghaith nodded and said, Yes. Asked whether he had money to hire an attorney, he shook his head and said no. He nodded and said yes when asked whether he had signed an affidavit describing his financial situation. |
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Stephen Baldwin to avoid jail in tax ca
Law Firm News |
2013/02/04 15:55
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Stephen Baldwin will avoid jail and will have up to five years to pay $350,000 in back taxes and penalties, his lawyer said Monday.
Attorney Russell Yankwitt said he and prosecutors tentatively agreed that Baldwin, youngest of the four acting Baldwin brothers, will admit in court this month that he repeatedly failed to file his New York state income tax returns.
Baldwin, who starred in 1995's The Usual Suspects and is currently on television in All-Star Celebrity Apprentice, is accused of skipping his 2008, 2009 and 2010 returns. When he was arrested in December, the district attorney said Baldwin could face up to four years in prison if convicted.
But at Monday's closed-door conference at the Rockland County Courthouse, The district attorney's office and the judge made it very clear that Mr. Baldwin will not be going to prison, Yankwitt said. If Mr. Baldwin can't work, he can't pay back his back taxes.
Baldwin, 46, of Upper Grandview, was not at the conference.
Prosecutor Anthony Dellicarri confirmed that a tentative agreement had been reached on a plea deal but would not detail the specifics. The district attorney's office said only that a possible resolution of the case was discussed.
Yankwitt said that if Baldwin pays back the money within a year, the case will be discharged on the condition he stay out of trouble. If Baldwin doesn't meet the one-year deadline, he will be sentenced to probation and given five years to pay back the money. |
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Lawyer seeks dismissal in Ohio HS player rape case
Legal Information |
2013/01/30 15:54
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On the eve of their trial, the attorney for one of two Ohio high school football players charged with raping a girl after an alcohol-fueled party said Tuesday that moving forward with the case is patently unfair and un-American because important witnesses haven't been compelled to testify.
The attorney for Ma'Lik Richmond filed a motion Monday saying that further prosecution of Richmond violates his due process and equal protection rights and asks the judge or state to dismiss the case.
You have case where it's clear — clear — that basic, fundamental, constitutional guarantees are not available to this child, my client, to put on a defense, Walter Madison told The Associated Press. As such, it is patently unfair and un-American to continue knowing that that is not available.
Richmond, 16, and Trent Mays, 17, are scheduled to go on trial Wednesday in Jefferson County juvenile court in Steubenville on charges they attacked a 16-year-old West Virginia girl last August. Their attorneys have denied the charges.
But the attorneys for both teens said their clients will be denied a fair trial because of the availability of crucial witnesses. A West Virginia judge's ruled last week that three juvenile witnesses there could not be compelled to testify in the Ohio case. |
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