Posted on 09/06/2006 4:40:52 AM PDT by FreedomPoster
DETROIT - A federal judge threw out conspiracy and money laundering charges Tuesday against three Texas men once accused of plotting a terror attack on Michigan's iconic Mackinac Bridge.
U.S. District Court Magistrate Charles Binder in Bay City ruled that federal prosecutors failed to present enough evidence to justify bringing them to trial on charges involving the buying and resale of prepaid cell phones. They were cleared earlier of the terror charges.
Defense lawyers claimed the men — Louai Othman, 23, his brother Adham Othman, 21, and their cousin Maruan Muhareb, 18, all of Mesquite, Texas — were targeted because of their Middle Eastern heritage. All are Palestinian-American.
"I'm happy to be going home, and I'm happy that I'm free," Adham Othman said through his lawyer, Christopher McGrath.
The three were arrested Aug. 11 after buying large numbers of prepaid cell phones at a Wal-Mart outlet in Caro, about 80 miles north of Detroit.
Tuscola County authorities said they were alarmed by the hundreds of prepaid cell phones they said were found in the men's van and by images on their digital camera of the five-mile-long Mackinac Bridge, which links Michigan's two peninsulas.
They charged the men with collecting or providing materials for terrorist acts and with surveillance of a vulnerable target for terrorist purposes.
The FBI and state police later said there was no imminent threat to the landmark span and no information linking the Othmans and Muhareb to known terrorist groups.
Michigan charges against the men were thrown out Aug. 16. But federal authorities continued to press a separate case against the men, saying the phone purchases were part of an illegal scheme to remove propriety software and resell the phones. TracFone Wireless Inc. and Nokia Corp. have filed civil suits elsewhere seeking to stop the practice.
Messages seeking comment were left with the U.S. attorney's office in Detroit.
Muhareb said he insisted all along that his phone-buying activities were legal. "This is what I told them from the beginning," he said through his defense attorney, Mona Fadlallah.
She said the case highlighted serious problems with the state of the U.S. justice system.
"This should be frightening for everyone, and not just people of Middle Eastern descent," Fadlallah said.
I am pretty sure these guys are on someones "watch" list.
At least I hope they are.
All are Palestinian-American.
Adham Othman said through his lawyer.........
Okay - What's wrong with this picture?
OK, but they were reselling the phones without a valid retail license at the least.
Detroit protects it's terrorists. The new motto for the state of Michigan
They basically got the federales to play up terror for them. An older wiser FBI woulda not said squat about the Mackinac pix, knowing they had no case.
Some pings to folks on the related thread here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1684109/posts
The cost of gasoline, the time they spent going to different stores to get the phones, and the very large sum used to buy the phones themselves seems to make it a very unprofitable business venture.
It's possible they were taking the phones apart or reprogramming them for a use other than their intended use, and then reselling them for that purpose, but it sounds like that is also illegal.
It sounds like there was a reasonable suspicion that these guys were involved with terrorism, but if the evidence of that is lacking it still sounds like their actions were illegal, and the government can still follow up any leads that might link these men to terrorists, and people are going to be watching people who buy lots of cell phones more carefully now as well.
Seems like the government is doing their job reasonably well in this case.
Something never mentioned and very surprisingly here - never asked .... What happened to all the cell phones?
This is the problem with not having a declared war. Enemy agents need a support network that does acts that doen't rise to sabotage to gather the materials for sabotage.
It's very hard to prove comspiracy based on the purchase of wire, or batteries or cell phones. that's in a criminal case. In a combat zone, anyone caught with those items would be detained for interrogation, and then put in a pow camp. And in this case , the worlds the combat zone.
TracFone sells the Nokia phones at a loss, hoping to make it up when the buyer spends money on minutes. If the phones are unlocked, such that they can be used on a non-TracFone network, then they can be resold at more than they cost at WalMart. There is a whole industry out there supporting this sort of operation.
A $19.95 Tracphone could easily be sold for $30.00 as pieces. Multiply $10 profit by 1,00 phones and you have a tidy sum ($10,000)
Tracphone practically gives their phones away, in hopes that the purchaser will buy time to recharge their phone.
You could sell the battery for $5 with $5 shipping and handling (shipping would be less than 50 cents). Sell the phone (less battery)for $10 bucks (with $8 shipping, cost of shipping it $4). Sell the card with 30 mins time for $1 ($3 shipping).
On ebay for a time one of the big selling items was Lexmark printers. Lexmark sold their printer for $30 with a printer cartrige in it. Refill cartriges were $25. The seller would buy a printer, pull the cartrige and sell it on ebay for $15 ($8 s/h), and the printer for $15 ($15 S/h). Many 1,000's were sold that way.
A smart person can walk into Wal Mart, Target, Home Depot, and pick out the items to sell on ebay with easily 50% profit and sometimes 300% profit.
Some printers ship with a starter cartridge with substantially less ink than in refill cartridges. I don't know whether Lexmark does that.
Absolutely, but most people don't know that, so they bid the cartriges up to close to the retail price, thinking they are getting a bargain. Remember, let the buyer beware.
Show me auctions on E-bay selling the types of phones in the stories, during the last 3 months.
...oh, and maybe research the sellers to see if they are Islamic...?
Cheers!
These men in the story are well known resellers of cell phones at the miles of flea market "wholesale" shops on Harry Hines in Dallas. They travel around to Wal Marts buying phones. Some american store owners came forward and vouched for them, said they've been doing it for years.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.