Posted on 10/29/2002 10:57:28 AM PST by kattracks
GREENBELT, Md. (AP) -- The federal government Tuesday charged John Allen Muhammad in the deaths of seven people as it weighed in with a criminal complaint that could bring the death penalty in the sniper case.
The 20-count complaint charges Muhammad, 41, with discharging a firearm as part of an extortion scheme in the deaths of seven people in Maryland and the wounding of three others, in Maryland and Virginia.
U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty of Virginia said if a firearm is used to carry out violence in an extortion scheme, the crime is punishable by the federal death penalty.
The charging complaint did not name the other suspect, 17-year-old John Lee Malvo, because he is not an adult. A juvenile can be charged with a federal capital offense but cannot be executed.
Malvo and Muhammad already face murder charges in Virginia and Maryland in the attacks that killed 10 people and wounded three. Alabama has charged them in a killing outside a liquor store last month in Montgomery.
The question of whether federal indictments will be lodged in the case remains undecided, McNulty said. He said a complaint is not the same as an indictment but "just a charging document that has the effect of further holding the defendants."
"But that charging document today would lay out some of the grounds for a federal case," McNulty said.
It is also unknown whether a federal prosecution would begin before or after state prosecutions.
The federal charges were filed one day after authorities in Washington state said they had linked Muhammad and Malvo to the February shooting death of a 21-year-old woman whose aunt once worked for Muhammad's auto repair business. They also said they believed the two fired shots at a synagogue.
Tacoma, Wash., Police Chief David Brame said a man contacted the FBI last week and told authorities he had allowed Muhammad and Malvo to borrow his weapons, including a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun, while the pair were staying with him earlier this year.
Ballistics tests matched the weapons to slugs found at both shooting scenes.
"As a result, we now consider John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo as suspects in the Keenya Cook homicide," Brame said. Authorities said there were no plans to charge the man who came forward.
Investigators recovered three handguns and two rifles from the man, including two allegedly used in the crimes, police said.
Cook was shot in the face Feb. 16 when she opened the door to the house where she lived with her aunt, Isa Nichols.
Nichols used to be a bookkeeper for Muhammad's auto repair business in the 1990s. She became friends with Muhammad and his then-wife Mildred, and sided with Mildred during that couple's bitter divorce and child-custody dispute.
Members of Cook's family wondered if Isa Nichols may have been the intended target and Cook could have been shot by mistake when she opened the door.
Brame also said a .44-caliber gun borrowed from the same man was used in a shooting at Temple Beth El between May 1 and May 4. No one was believed at the synagogue at the time.
One shot struck an outer wall. The other lodged in an interior wall where religious scrolls are kept. The scrolls were not damaged.
Muhammad was in the Army based at Fort Lewis beginning in 1985 and lived in Tacoma off and on after he was honorably discharged in 1994.
On Monday, prosecutors in Virginia announced charges against the sniper suspects that could bring the death penalty.
In Prince William County, where Dean Meyers was slain Oct. 9 while pumping gas, a grand jury charged Muhammad and Malvo with capital murder and conspiracy to commit murder under a new post-Sept. 11 terrorism law.
Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore said the terrorism law gives Virginia prosecutors a "backup, another option in their arsenal" to seek the death penalty against Muhammad or Malvo if either eludes a death sentence for capital murder.
Last week, Maryland filed six first-degree murder counts against the two.
Copyright 2002 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Sheesh, this is confusing: if the Feds are trying Muhammed Virginia can't try him until that case is over. It sounds like a federal " complaint" isn't the same by Virginia.
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