Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times
Lynne F. Stewart's focus is on an appeal, with hopes of a judge's lenient sentence.
Posted on 02/12/2005 4:15:06 PM PST by NormsRevenge
The first task yesterday for Lynne F. Stewart, after she returned to her office a few blocks from the Manhattan courthouse where she was convicted of aiding Islamic terrorism, was to figure out how to stop practicing law.
Hoping for an acquittal until the last moments of her seven-month trial, Ms. Stewart, a defense lawyer, began only yesterday to make calls to the New York State Bar Association to find out the steps by which she would be disbarred, a penalty she must pay after being convicted of a felony. On Thursday, she was found guilty by a federal jury on all five counts of aiding terrorism and lying to the government for carrying messages out of prison from a terrorist client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman.
The verdict felt "like being in a massive car accident," Ms. Stewart said in an interview yesterday, her voice still unsteady. "It's instantaneous and it hits you so hard. You're dazed for a while." She sat surrounded by boxes and stacks of pictures in an office she has barely occupied since a nervous landlord evicted her from her longtime Broadway work space in June.
Ms. Stewart said she hoped to give most, if not all, of the half-dozen cases she was still working on to her son, Geoffrey S. Stewart, who shares her criminal defense practice. She will fill the time she would have spent practicing law helping to prepare a complex federal appeal: her own.
Besides the appeal, Ms. Stewart and her chief lawyer, Michael E. Tigar, plan to file post-trial motions by March 4 seeking to persuade Judge John G. Koeltl to overturn the jury's verdict, arguing that the jurors misinterpreted the terror conspiracy laws. It is a long shot, Ms. Stewart admits. They will also try to persuade the judge to be lenient when he sets her sentence on July 15. In a move that surprised her legal team, prosecutors working for United States Attorney David N. Kelley allowed Ms. Stewart to remain free on bail pending appeal. Ms. Stewart, who is 65, faces up to 30 years in jail.
Ms. Stewart said that even after the unexpectedly sweeping conviction, she had no second thoughts about her decision to give to the news media a statement by Mr. Abdel Rahman, a blind Islamic cleric, even though special prison rules barred her from doing so. "The decision I made to go ahead was the right one," she said.
But Ms. Stewart said she did regret underestimating how prosecutors would react to her provocative tactics. "I should have understood better," she said, " that if they did come after me it would not be just to cut me off" from visiting Mr. Abdel Rahman.
And she regrets some of her cocky talk, which the jurors heard on secret government recordings of telephone calls and of her meetings in a federal prison in Minnesota with the sheik. On one recording, she called a prosecutor in charge of enforcing the prison rules, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, "a crusader" and said he was "evil."
"Some of my loose talk, brash talk, I'm sure did not endear me to the jury," Ms. Stewart said.
She said she was disappointed that the two or three jurors who, based on notes from the jury room, appeared to be leaning toward acquitting her did not stick to their position. She attributed the jury's harsh judgment to the fear that she said has permeated the country since the Sept. 11 attacks. An early decision by Judge Koeltl to allow prosecutors to show videotapes of Osama bin Laden in the courtroom had been a crucial setback to her defense, she said.
"You can't throw a skunk in the jury box and tell the jury not to smell it," Ms. Stewart said of the impact of Mr. bin Laden's image.
None of the eight women and four men on the jury, who served anonymously because of the terror charges in the trial, discussed their deliberations, which lasted a total of 12 days of meetings over a month. But from notes they sent out and expressions they showed in court in the final days of their discussions, it appeared that two or three female jurors were resisting a majority that favored conviction on all counts.
When the verdicts were announced, one female juror, No. 7, appeared to stifle a sob and spoke barely audibly when asked to confirm her decision.
Ms. Stewart, who calls herself a radical lawyer, said she still believed "in the strength of the people." But she worried that the jurors allowed themselves to "be written upon" by prosecutors playing on their post-Sept. 11 fears.
After a Supreme Court decision on sentencing last month, Judge Koeltl will have new flexibility to decide Ms. Stewart's sentence. Ms. Stewart said the loss of her law practice was more painful than the prospect of life behind bars.
"I spend a lot of time in jails," she said, "and I'm not afraid of jail as such. I know that jail is mostly unpleasant, uncomfortable, you're at the command of persons who don't have your best interests at heart, you can't make a decision for yourself."
But she worried that she might be singled out for special isolation or harsh treatment by prison authorities as a terrorism convict.
Ms. Stewart's co-defendants, Ahmed Abdel Sattar and Mohamed Yousry, will also appeal their convictions, their lawyers said. Mr. Sattar, a Staten Island postal worker who worked as a paralegal aide with Ms. Stewart, was convicted of terror charges that carry a maximum life sentence. Mr. Yousry, an Arabic-language interpreter, was convicted of providing material support to terrorism.
A lawyer for Mr. Yousry, David Ruhnke, said he was "shocked and bitterly disappointed" by the verdict.
"I really think he is an innocent man convicted because of 9/11, and because he was working for an unpopular person," he said.
Lynne F. Stewart's focus is on an appeal, with hopes of a judge's lenient sentence.
is that thing a woman?
is that thing a woman?
Such a touching and sympathetic story about a convicted terrorist. So typical of the NYT.
So, is Ward Churchill next?
Not to take joy at another's plight, but I think it is high time that Lynne Stewart be held accountable. The Left has gotten away with murder for four decades, like errant schoolchildren who have been allowed to be disrepectful to the teacher and abusive to their classmates. It's high time that the U.S. started persecuting traitors amongst our midst again.
John Kerry, are you next?
You should have seen the liberals weeping and wailing over this idiot on the far-left 'Democracy Now!' broadcast last night. I almost threw the coffee table through the TV. (Have you seen the female host on that network? Yeep! Makes Ms. Stewart look like Laurie Dhue!)
She was convicted of aiding terrorists. That is a felony, pure and simple.
Why in the world was she not frog marched off to prison in chains immediately?
She is an immediate threat to the lives and freedom of anyone living in this country (except Ward Churchill) and a significant threat to thinking humans anywhere. She should be dropped in a very deep hole and left there.
Rot in prison, terrorist hussie...!
The NYT will always show affection to the southbound side of a norhtbound Lefty.
This reporter is crying crocidile tears for Lynn Stewart. Evil America has struck down another hero in the fight to destroy Capitalism and Liberty. How could any reporter be so delusional? Oh, I forgot, she works for the New York Times.
Maybe now she will get an honest, decent job after her jail time.
Her options should be "hanging", "firing squad", and "draw and quarter".
How long before the left swaps their "Free Mumia!" t's for the new "Free Lynne!" ones?
Now that I think about it, maybe we just ought to send her back to her terrorist masters, by airdrop. (And no, no parachute.)
This commie has plagued NY for years. She's nuts and ugly to boot. Her worries will be gone when she gets sent to prison where she'll free room and board.
Give her the maximum sentence. It's a pity the death penalty is not an option.
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