Remember the four Arab men arrested in Detroit on terrorism charges in June 2003? You might recall the endless replay of their home video of Disneyland and Las Vegas, which purported to prove that they were casing 'strategic' targets for an attack.
It seemed faintly ridiculous even at the time, but three of the men were in fact convicted for 'providing material support to terrorists', primarily because they had been unlucky enough to move into an apartment previously occupied by an al-Qaeda suspect. The government alleged that Moroccan native Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi was the ring leader of a conspiracy to provide safe houses, weapons and target information for attacks in Jordan, Turkey and the US. The full text of the indictment is here.
The prosecution was bolstered by an informant who had lived with the men and and seemed eager to testify that they were extremists plotting an attack on the US. This recent article on Salon.com reminded me of the original story.
Following the high-profile arrests, the Bush administration held the case up as an example of a successful prevention of a terrorist attack. So whatever happened to them?
In 2004, with little media coverage, the convictions were thrown out by a judge, and the prosecuting attorneys were tried (but not convicted) for criminal misconduct for having withheld and possibly manipulated evidence. The DoJ complaint against the prosecutor is detailed here.
The informant in the case turned out to be "a self-described scam artist". Prosecutor Richard Convertino claimed in a later whistleblower filing that he was pressured by Attorney General John Ashcroft to withhold exculpatory evidence from the defence.
The Justice Department, following an internal investigation, admitted widespread prosecutorial misconduct and had the case thrown out altogether in early 2004. The terrorism charges were dropped. USA Today covered the story inside here, and here is a summary of New York Times coverage.
But the story did not quite end there. Elmardoudi has remained in custody since then. In 2007, he pleaded guilty to social security fraud, and a few months ago he was sentenced to 5 years in prison (most of which already served). In fact, the whole crew (including the informant) appear to have been part of a minor ring falsifying documents, including social security cards (for opening bank accounts) and credit cards. According to the Iowa McClatchy-Tribune:
Elmardoudi came to the US in 1966 as a child and has been a lawful permanent resident since 2000, living in Chicago and Dearborn. In 2000 he caught the attention of authorities looking into "shoulder surfing" -- copying phone access numbers while callers are dialing-- at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, court records show. He fled from a Minnesota halfway house in 2001 and met up with Moroccans Brahim Sidi and Youssef Hmimssa in Chicago. They produced fake immigration documents and brought people to Waterloo, Iowa City and Dubuque to use the bogus paperwork to apply for Social Security numbers, records state. The numbers allowed their clients to obtain jobs.
Elmardoudi is now in the custody of the US Marshals Service, and may be deported.
One of the other men, Karim Koubriti, recently sued the prosecuting attorney for $9 million, claiming his life was destroyed by the false terrorism allegation and the 3 years he spent in jail. In the meantime the government has been creative in finding other ways to keep him locked up. He is currently negotiating a plea bargain related to a 2001 allegation that he falsely told an insurance company he was injured in a car crash.
The disgraced prosecutor, Richard Convertino, faces continuing legal troubles of his own. Following his grand jury indictment and subsequent acquittal, he resigned from the Detroit attorney general's office in 2005. He then filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department effectively claiming slander. The DoJ fired back detailing Convertino's alleged misrepresentations going back to his college days. A lot of the gory detail can be found in the Detroit News interview excerpted here.
Recently a judge ruled that Convertino is not immune from the civil lawsuit being filed against him by Koubriti, and that the government need not pay the costs of his defense. Ouch. The local press has been making hay over Convertino for some time: "Many colleagues saw Convertino as a case-hogging cowboy who was more than due for a comeuppance."
This being Americaaa, Convertino's private practice seems none the worse for wear, sporting the front-page testimonial from (his?) university football coach: "Rick Convertino is 'A Warrior'".
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