Khazak Teens Arraigned for Tossing Fireworks in Boston Case

On May 1, 2013, Dias Kadyrbayev, 19, and Azamat Tazhayakov, 19, were charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstructing justice with the intent to impede the Boston Marathon bombing investigation. The two college friends of the surviving bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, are nationals of Kazakhstan who were residing in New Bedford, Massachusetts on student visas. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant US Attorneys Stephanie Siegmann and John Capin under Carmen Ortiz.

The Muslim Observer (i.e. yours truly) was at the Moakley Federal Courthouse for the arraignment on August 13. The boys were brought into the courtroom handcuffed. US Marshalls removed their handcuffs for the hearing. They turned around briefly to meet eyes with family and supporters. The thin young Asians, who are being kept in 24 hour isolation, looked nervous but hopeful in their orange jumpsuits. They confirmed that they understood the charges and said “Not Guilty” in response to both counts. Azamat Tazhayakob's parents and siblings were in the front row. 

Judge Marianne Bowler interrupted US Attorney Siegmann while she was talking, in order to tell the Tazhayakoub family that they can't let the baby crawl all over the courtroom. It seemed unnecessarily abrupt, since she was not making any noise. An older sister took the baby outside. The judge then asked Siegmann to repeat the charges, as they exchanged chummy smiles. Siegmann maintained a light, breezy demeanor as she informed the two teens that they face 25 years in prison plus a $250,000 fine and deportation if found guilty. 

They are accused of throwing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s backpack containing fireworks and a jar of Vasoline into a dumpster and taking his laptop after receiving a text suggesting they go to Tsarnaev’s room to “take what’s there,” around the time his face appeared on TV as a wanted suspect. The FBI claims to have found this backpack, conveniently identified by a UMass Dartmouth homework assignment, in a landfill.

Siegmann announced that government prosecutors have 15-20 witnesses, and that the trial is likely to take 2 weeks. The next court date is an "initial status hearing" on Sept. 26. 

Azamat's mother was crying inconsolably on the way out. An Asian woman who observed the hearing told Azamat's father, "Your son is very strong." Azamat's family doesn't speak English well and was not responding to questions. Diaz Kadyrbayev's father was talking through a Russian translator. Both fathers were very well dressed.  

Azamat’s father, Amir Ismagulov owns oil fields in Kazakhstan. Azamat came to the US to study oil engineering so he could work in the family business. Ismagulov insists his son had no knowledge of Tsarnaev’s alleged role in the bombing.

“The entire family feels that the government is scapegoating them because they are Muslims and foreign students,” Tazhayakov’s attorney, Arkady Bukh told reporters. “He is absolutely not guilty. If he wanted to assist in terrorism, he would have hid the computer."

Kadyrbayev's attorney Robert Stahl described his client as "a law-abiding college student whose only crime was befriending a fellow student who spoke his more comfortable native language."

"We look forward to the evidence eventually proving that Dias did not obstruct justice, nor knowingly or intentionally take evidence from Dzohkhar Tsarnaev's dorm room. The FBI recovered all of the items because of Dias' complete cooperation with their investigation," Stahl said. "Dias Kadyrbayev and his family also grieve for the victims' families and want justice for the victims." 

Yet - even if the defendants did remove fireworks from Tsarnaev’s apartment, what does that prove? Since fireworks are illegal in Massachusetts, it would be reasonable to want them to be gone, if you knew the police was likely to stop by. There has been no evidence or federal agency report citing that the fireworks were used in the bombing but rather, were simply found in the suspect’s room. 

“The fireworks devices allegedly found during the investigation... contain limited quantities of explosive or combustible chemical composition designed to deflagrate (burn) rather than detonate like dynamite, TNT or military explosives,” said Julie Heckman, Executive Director of the American Pyrotechnics Association.

"We believe it is virtually impossible to create the level of destruction and devastation caused in Boston with legitimate consumer fireworks and suspect that the investigation will ultimately point toward other materials being responsible for the creation of the deadly pressure cooker bombs," she concluded.

The two former UMass Dartmouth students were originally detained for immigration violations. They were then questioned for 12 hours over two days by the FBI without a lawyer present. Another friend, Robel Phillipos, who is being tried separately, was charged with lying to the FBI. Phillipos could face up to eight years in jail and a $250,000 fine. 

The original criminal complaint against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is based entirely on an unsubstantiated claim made by an FBI agent - which is why his friends are so important to the prosecution. If government prosecutors can get Tsarnaev’s friends to “cooperate,” they no longer need to present any convincing evidence. When the defendants are Muslims accused of Terrorism, very few juries ever question government claims.

Attorney Carmen Ortiz with the same Judge Bowler convicted Tarek Mehanna based on inflammatory rhetoric. To get around the lack of evidence, the government threatened Mehanna’s friends into becoming cooperating witnesses.

She also prosecuted Rezwan Ferdaus, a US citizen who was entrapped by the FBI and sentenced to 17 years. Because Ortiz intimidated him into accepting a plea bargain, there was no trial and therefore no public evidence to support the charges against him.

Ortiz’s usual gameplay links the accused with a vague global Islamic Conspiracy. Court proceedings are conducted in a racist, demeaning way, with expert witnesses giving false testimony. Evan Kohlmann, who narrated Ortiz’s prosecution of Mehanna and Yassin Aref has already testified to Congress regarding the Boston bombing’s link to “al Qaeda.”

The politically ambitious lead US prosecutor was investigated by Congress for “blatant prosecutorial intimidation” when computer hacker Aaron Swartz committed suicide after Ortiz threatened him with 50+ years in prison and a $4 million fine. Judges have reprimanded her for “overkill” using federal charges. Glenn Greenwald contrasted her predatory prosecution of the young and powerless with the “incredible leniency given by Ortiz's office to large companies and executives accused of serious crimes.” 

Attorney Harlan Protass writes in Slate, “Given the heinous nature of the marathon bombing and the international spotlight on the attack, Ortiz must be under enormous pressure to go after Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov with everything she’s got. The Boston community and local law enforcement are probably encouraging her to do so.”

Boston Bombing Mystery: Leaked Photos Prove Police Lied

 TMO 

It is deeply offensive and un-American to slander someone as a bomber or terrorist without any evidence, long before the trial. Assuming someone guilty before proven innocent threatens the Constitutional rights of all Americans who at some point might be accused of a crime.

It is naive to assume good will on the part of government prosecutors, especially in these fake “Islamic terror” cases, knowing how much foul play has gone on in courtrooms especially over the past few years that involved the FBI and high ups in the government misrepresenting evidence and engaging in illegitimate smear campaigns. It appears that the government’s purpose for putting a Muslim on trial in America is rarely to establish the facts of the case but to create deliberately misleading narrative for the purpose of bolstering a political agenda that most Americans would not agree with if they knew the facts.

At this point there is zero proof being offered that the Tsarnaevs were responsible for the Boston marathon bombings, and even less convincing evidence that if they did, that their motivation was religion. That’s all part of a stereotypical, false narrative-with-an-agenda the media promotes, similar to Nazi journalism about Jews in the 1940s. While the agenda is unclear here in the US, the narrative is spectacular.

We have countless unverified statements made by FBI and Boston police to the media. These media claims are then used as evidence in court. This is standard operating procedure for a frame up. Many of these claims are obviously implausible, like the “confession letter” that mysteriously appeared inside the boat nearly 3 months after the suspect’s capture. The entire world is laughing their heads off about that one.

Now we have photographic proof that a member of the Boston police brazenly lied on TV saying Tsarnaev had a throat wound. Leaked photos of his capture on April 19 clearly show that the young man had a head injury and his hand was badly mangled but his larynx was fine – there was no blood dripping down his neck.

Photos leaked to the internet that were taken at the hospital clearly show a straight slash about 5 inches long down the side of his neck near the ear, but his larynx is just fine. Why was the public told he could not speak? And what happened to him afterwards?

At the court hearing on July 10, “his eye was almost completely swollen shut, his cheek was very swollen – I’m pretty sure these were on the left side of his face- and one side of his mouth was droopy.. His mouth kind of reminded me of when someone has a stroke… the swelling wasn’t bruised from what I could see,” an onlooker told TMO.

There are many questions remaining. The marathon bombing took place April 15, 2013. On April 21, government prosecutors submitted a motion to the court to seal Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s case. The judge granted the motion. On the same day they submitted their criminal complaint under seal. This all took place on a Sunday, oddly enough. On April 22, Tsarnaev was handed over to US Marshals by the FBI and was charged with using a “weapon of mass destruction” and property damage resulting in death. He nodded in response to the judge a couple of times, then he said “No” once. The case was then unsealed, but many files are missing from the docket.

A probable cause hearing was scheduled for May 30, but on April 20, it was rescheduled to July by agreement of both parties “in view of the complex factual and legal issues present in this case and the need for adequate time to obtain and review evidence.” The Federal Grand Jury indicted the suspect on June 28, so the probable cause hearing never happened.

What is bizarre is that the killing of MIT police officer Sean Collier was added to the multiple grave charges, even though Cambridge police never claimed the murder was related to the bombing suspects. Why was the cop-killing charge thrown in later?

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s friends and family all describe him as a friendly, laid back guy and without exception, they are universally confused by government accusations that he bombed the Boston marathon. The predatory media could not find one person to say a bad thing about him. Meanwhile, on June 9, police found someone who actually fits the profile of a psycho killer.

27-year-old Daniel Morley “had all the materials needed to build a pressure-cooker bomb before this kind of weapon was used in the Boston Marathon attack in April,” according to comments made by the man’s own mother in a recently unsealed police affidavit.

“Police also said they found a shoe box with the head of a decapitated bird, dismantled cell phones, flex cuff restraints, black gun powder, and a burnt green stuffed animal that had been stabbed repeatedly,” wrote Tim McLaughlin for Reuters. The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force said it is investigating. But the only investigation that has been reported is whether or not the man has any ties to the Tsarnaevs.

All we know for sure about the Tsarnaevs is that they were fleeing from the police, shortly after their faces appeared on TV. Lightly armed, Tamerlan engaged in a shootout with police, which was filmed from a window. The brothers appeared vulnerable and crouched behind a car on the side of the street. Then, there were some loud explosions and smoke filled the air. But there was no property damage, no shrapnel, nor any reported injury from these explosions, just some marks on the pavement on the opposite side of the street – not where the Tsarnaevs were crouched. When the smoke cleared, Tamerlan was dead and Dzhokhar was on the run.

It will be interesting to see if government prosecutor Carmen Ortiz will provide proof that Dzhokar Tsarnaev bombed the marathon, or if she will resort to the cheap tactic of using “secret evidence” against the accused. Other than wild media stories about the manhunt that resulted in the cities of Boston, Cambridge and Watertown being shut down under martial law, all the public has to go on is surveillance camera footage showing Dzhokhar and Tamerlan walking peacefully through the crowd at the Boston marathon wearing light backpacks. The criminal complaint is based solely on the affidavit of one FBI agent, Daniel Genck, who, based on video footage that no one else has seen, claims that the men were carrying large heavy backpacks and that they set their backpacks down prior to the explosions.

The public should demand to see a real investigation of all the actors in this drama, not just the accused. The FBI should not be simultaneously investigating a case and framing a case for the prosecution. That’s a conflict of interest.

Jon Roland of the Constitution Society wrote, “The Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been charged with multiple federal offenses, but none of them are authorized by the U.S. Constitution… If the federal courts were constitutionally compliant, they would be compelled to dismiss them all, and let the State of Massachusetts prosecute him under its laws.”

Cops Say Marathon Bombers Amateurs

One day after the Boston Marathon was interrupted by two bomb blasts, speculation abounds regarding the perpetrator(s), possible motives, and whether or not the government had foreknowledge. 

“The pattern is becoming too, too familiar. So, Boston cops were having a bomb squad drill the same day as the Boston bombing, just like the attacks on Sept. 11 in New York and the 7/7 attack in London,” Cynthia McKinney, former US Congresswoman said.

The Boston Marathon has been held on Patriot's Day, the third Monday of April, since 1897. The state holiday commemorates Lexington and Concord, the first battles of the American Revolution. The marathon race from Hopkinton, Massachusetts to Boston's Copley Square attracts about a half-million spectators every year.

The first bomb exploded around 2:50 pm at the Fairmont Hotel along Boylston Street. The second bomb detonated approximately 10 seconds later near to the bleachers close to the finish line.

Tracy Munro of Cambridge, Massachusetts posted on Facebook, “I was a couple doors from the explosion at the finish line. The bomb exploded suddenly while we cheered on runners. Clanking cowbells. Holding up signs of support. Boom. Boom. Everyone started to run for safety. It was hysteria. I stopped myself suddenly and I went back to help and found a young child laying in the street, who was badly injured. Her leg was blown off. I held her head and talked to her until help came while others tied off her leg to stop the bleeding. Her name is Jane. And she held on to me while we carried her to the ambulance. Jane's brother, Martin, did not survive. I'm horrified, but we are safe. It took a long while to track down my family and friends but all are safe and accounted for. I am horrified and in true shock. I appreciate all the love and support. I am not a hero. I am a mother who would hope someone would come to Stella's aid in this situation if I couldn't. She was just a baby, she was so strong and brave. I'm going to try and find the family. Somehow. Life is precious. Stop complaining. I love you all. And. I hope they find who did this and burn them alive.”

A rumor started by the New York Post, that a foreign student from Saudi Arabia who was injured in the bombing was being questioned, has led many to fear an anti-Muslim backlash. The Huffington Post reported, “Security officials at Boston's largest mosque requested police to guard its campus in the wake of Monday's deadly explosions at the Boston Marathon, a sobering reminder that Muslims in the U.S. often face threats after alleged terrorist attacks.”

President Obama intervened on national TV to calm the public saying, “We still don't know who did this or why they did this.” White House officials stated that “a thorough investigation will have to determine whether it was planned and carried out by a terrorist group, foreign or domestic.”

The date of the April 15 attack corresponds with Israeli Independence Day, Tax Day, and Patriots Day. Most political analysts suspect right wingers or Muslims. The bombers are believed to be amateurs. 

No one has taken responsibility for the bombing. The Pakistani Taliban and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood have denied any role. A home in Revere, Massachusetts was raided by the FBI but no further information has been made available. Police are searching for an unknown person who was filmed standing on a rooftop watching the pandemonium below without emotional reaction. 

What we do know about the explosions that killed three and injured 170, is that they were caused by two small homemade pipe bombs filled with BB pellets or ball bearings and nails, which were hidden inside two trash cans. Surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital removed 20 to 40 pieces of shrapnel from some of the wounded. Terror experts said devices like the ones used in Boston could be made for $100 with instructions found on YouTube. This style of homemade pipe bomb is typical of teenagers who are experimenting with explosives for laughs.

One of the more disturbing aspects about the bombing is that it could have been inspired by a recent episode of Family Guy, which aired on March 17, 2013. In this prime time TV cartoon, the main character Peter is shown driving his car through the finish line at the Boston Marathon. Peter is shown smiling in his blood-drenched car, raising a clenched fist as he crosses the finish line past many dead bodies. Peter then becomes interested in converting to Islam, as a result of a new friend, Mahmoud, who gives him a cell phone. Wearing Islamic clothing, Peter dials the phone and an explosion is heard outside. He dials the phone a second time and another explosion is heard, and people screaming. The first explosion followed by quiet (most people did not know what happened) and the second explosion a few seconds later followed by screaming, as depicted in the cartoon episode, corresponds eerily with the real event.

State and local officials told CNN's John King that there was no known credible threat prior to the explosions, though there are reports of heightened security and bomb squads present even before the race. University of Mobile’s Cross Country Coach, who was near the finish line of the Boston Marathon when a series of explosions went off, told local news he thought it was odd there were bomb sniffing dogs at the start and finish lines. Stevenson said he saw law enforcement spotters on the roofs at the start of the race. He's been in plenty of marathons in Chicago, D.C., Chicago, London and other major metropolitan areas but has never seen that level of security before. "They kept making announcements to the participants do not worry, it's just a training exercise," Coach Ali Stevenson told Local 15.

David Jesser, a teacher at Joseph Lee School, who ran the marathon to raise money for the local elementary school, said: “Nothing seemed atypical to me in terms of security. There's always a large police presence and there's always some military lining the course as well as some running the race. It seemed pretty normal to me, although I could not see the area of the explosion and don't know if security looked any different in that area. But for 25.8 miles it seemed pretty normal... I guess there were about 4500 runners that didn't finish and we were right up at the front of those runners. I think around 23,000 ran yesterday.”

Boston’s School Bussing Policy Unsustainable

Growing up in Ann Arbor, Michigan I often felt like I had a hard time making and keeping friendships. My immigrant parents who worked more than full time had no close community ties and were not particularly social, so I was basically on my own when it came to finding a group of peers to “hang out” with. However, due to the relatively small size of the town and neighborhood school placement, by Junior High, even without much parental supervision I was quite familiar to the neighborhood kids and had developed relationships that, thanks to Facebook, continue to this day.

My children growing up in Boston, Massachusetts are having a very different childhood.

I try to make an effort to get to know the parents of any child my children take a shine to, but keeping up the relationship however requires driving the children to and from play-dates, because the way Boston Public Schools are set up, students are chosen from remote neighborhoods to attend school. I have at times found myself in despair because even after four children, I have hardly any personal contact with neighborhood parents, while my children do not know anyone from school within walking distance to play with, despite the large number of children living in our area.

Personal alienation is a profound side effect of Boston’s historical bussing program that was instituted as a result of the Civil Rights movement. Instead of automatically going to a nearby school, all students regardless of family income are entered in a lottery to try for their “top choice” schools. Failing that, students are assigned almost randomly to schools throughout the city. While students within walking distance of a school receive some priority status there is no guarantee. I cannot even imagine the waste in gasoline costs. Not only are poor kids getting bussed into wealthier areas for school but wealthier kids are being bussed into poorer neighborhoods. There are even programs such as METCO, where children are bussed out into the suburbs in the interest of diversity.

In a Dorchester Reporter article entitled “School policy casts our children adrift,” Gintautas Dumcius describes a recent Committee on Education hearing at Boston City Hall. It included several families disgruntled with the current system. They all live within blocks of each other, but their children go to different schools. “I don’t, frankly, know many of them,” said Michael Harrington, a Dorchester parent of two, with a tinge of sadness. Parents reported that they must take their children each morning to several different bus stops to be brought to various schools many miles away. The situation is so intensely irritating that parents who can afford it have been moving to the suburbs or putting their children in private schools.

Karen Johnson, who relocated her family from Pittsburgh to Boston, said if she had a chance to do it all over again, she would probably not have moved into the city. “I’m unhappy with the structure of the system and that children have to move [between schools] so often.”

“I think all of this testimony spoke to the need for massive reform,”

City Councillor At-Large John Connolly said after the five hour hearing. “…The current system leaves parents greatly frustrated and the Dorchester panel also spoke to the fact that it leaves neighbors not knowing each other or not able to bond together the way they’d like to.”

Mayor Thomas Menino has pledged to launch a “radically different” school placement system, with students being able to go to schools in their neighborhood, by next year.

There is a task force assigned to the duty of overhauling the school assignment policies.

My own personal experience with Boston Public Schools has actually been quite positive. Placement in Kindergarten for my youngest can be expected to take up to three years in Boston due to not enough available seats for willing students, but one wonderful new development, part of the School Readiness program, is the parent-child Playgroups opportunity for parents and children 1 and up. Another great thing for my family is the expansion of my children’s elementary school into a middle school, thus enabling my children to keep their friendships through eighth grade.

But the best policy of all for my children so far has been the Exam School policy of Boston Public Schools. Students on the Honor Roll in third and fourth grade are put into the “Advanced Work Program,” special class assignments likely to result in placement at one of three prestigious public prep schools. Boston Latin School, where my son now attends seventh grade, is actually the oldest public school in America, and was attended by the likes of Benjamin Franklin and other founders of the United States.

So, although the general state of Boston Public Schools remains perhaps not much more than a government-funded daycare center for working parents, for those students who want to learn, and are willing to work, there are very real opportunities, and I am deeply grateful for that.

Neighborhood organizations like “Thrive in 5” combine the efforts of several government and donor sponsored organizations to help unite isolated parents with available aid, but ultimately I think the best way to introduce families to one another is to re-institute neighborhood school assignments so that parents can organize themselves to get the funding they need for whatever they want to see happen locally.

People’s Lawyer Goes to Jail

by TMO 

By Karin Friedemann, TMO

File:  Attorney Barry Wilson.

Boston–“The fiery attorney who represented former Boston city councilor Chuck Turner in his bribery trial is now headed to jail himself,” the Boston Globe reports.

Superior Court Judge Patrick Brady sentenced famed “people’s lawyer” Barry Wilson to 90 days in the South Bay House of Correction in Boston for contempt of court for being “loud, abusive, insulting and disruptive.”

On May 15, 2012, Wilson was escorted off to jail in front of a courthouse crowded with his supporters.

Attorney Wilson was attempting to ensure that his client, a 22-year-old African-American man on trial for his life, had a jury of his peers in a first degree murder trial. Wilson protested when the prosecutor struck off all young people and people of African-American descent from serving on the jury. Wilson then “went ballistic” after the judge then empaneled a white man who had worked many years for Homeland Security. David Boeri of WBUR reports that Wilson’s “pyrotechnics” went on for six minutes.

“You’re going to sit him. Lock me up now. Just lock me up, lock me up and declare a mistrial,” Wilson ranted. “That’s ridiculous. Fifteen years a federal agent and he’s going to be unbiased — are you kidding me?”

As Wilson strongly objected, the judge found him in contempt. The Judge then stayed the sentence until completion of the trial and ordered Attorney Wilson to proceed. As a result, Wilson said he was under the sword during the whole trial and therefore distracted from defending his client fully.

Two days after the jury found the defendant guilty of first degree murder, Judge Brady sentenced Attorney Wilson to ninety days in jail.

Barry Wilson has a 36 year long history of defending political activists, labor organizers, immigrants and minorities. He was lead counsel in the Plymouth 25, Marcus Jean and Amer Jubran cases, the first lawyer for the Boston School Bus Drivers, Steelworkers Local 8751 in the 1970s, and counsel for framed African-American City Councilor Chuck Turner. Wilson served six months in federal prison in 1985 for refusing to violate attorney-client privilege.

According to Wilson’s lawyer, Judge Brady had dropped “a nuclear bomb” without warning, “chilling the advocacy” of defense attorneys.

Associate Appeals Court Justice David Mills, in reviewing Wilson’s alleged misconduct, considered it a clear breach of decorum. “He screamed at the judge and made a scene,” Mills said.

“All I’m trying to do is stand up for my clients’ rights,” Wilson said. “You got to be in those pits to understand what you have to do.

You’re standing between your client and a jail cell. And you have an ethical, professional obligation to be a zealous advocate.”

On Thursday May 3, 2012, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court denied Attorney Wilson’s motion for further appellate review, thus upholding the Court of Appeal’s March 20, 2012 decision denying Attorney Wilson’s appeal. The Appeals Court called Wilson’s conduct “without parallel” in a 21-page rebuke.

During the contempt hearing, Wilson was defiant.

“Mr. Wilson, your behavior before me two weeks ago was atrocious,” said Suffolk Superior Court Judge Patrick Brady, calling Wilson’s conduct “the worst I’ve seen in 20 years on the bench.”

“I don’t think my conduct was egregious or out of line in terms of what occurred in court,” the criminal defense attorney replied to the judge in his well-known booming voice. “In 2011 an African-American man cannot get a fair trial.”

“Wilson has a right to his own opinions but he has no right to interrupt the proceedings and turn the courtroom into a platform from which to hurl disrespectful words at the judge and the criminal justice system because he did not agree with the judge’s ruling,” the Appeals Court concluded.

“This flagrantly reactionary repression — which comes from the same poisoned well that jailed people’s lawyer Lynne Stewart (who represented the blind Shaykh Omar Rahman) — is designed to send a threatening message to the progressive movement and to all defense lawyers who stand with it,” comments Kirshbaum in Workers World.

Larry Pinkney writes on BlackCommentator.com, “On February 10th, 2005, attorney Lynne Portia Stewart, after having been targeted for many years by the US Government for her vigorous defense of the rights of Black and other people of color, found herself convicted of a despicably and conspicuously bogus ‘conspiracy to aid and abet terrorism’ charge.”

This was “an obvious attempt by the U.S. government to silence dissent, curtail vigorous defense lawyers, and install fear in those who would fight against the U.S. government’s racism,” state her supporters.

Prior to sentencing, Stewart wrote a letter to the judge pleading for mercy: “What might have been legitimately tolerated in 2000-2001, was after 9/11, interpreted differently and considered criminal… The government disparages the idea of zealous advocacy because it has never practiced criminal defense law as I did, with heartfelt concern for my clients. I tested the limits of what the courts and law would allow for my clients because I believed I was, as criminal defense lawyers often say, “liberty’s last champion.”

Unfortunately the rules of ethics have moved away from excusing zealous or intemperate behavior and language. 90 days in the county jail for Wilson still seems quite extraordinary, when the customary penalty for an attorney’s contempt of court is normally a fine, but jail time for zealous attorneys seems to be occurring more frequently, especially in political cases.

Michigan criminal defense attorney Scott Milliard found himself in jail for four days after being held in contempt by District Court Judge Kenneth Post because he told a client at arraignment not to answer the judge’s questions about personal drug use because the client might incriminate himself.

Kentucky attorney Amelia Adams got 6 months in jail after she refused to disclose to District Judge Karem the name of her 17 year old client who had sought permission from the court to have an abortion without her parent’s consent.

Wilson told his supporters, “I’ll go do my 90 days, I’ll smile through the whole 90 days. I’ll go out the way I came in… No I don’t regret anything. I did what I was supposed to do.”
Wilson plans to retire after he does his time. “I’m gone,” Wilson says. “I don’t want any more part of this. Why would I want to do this job any more and be surrounded by judges who are idiots? I legitimized a bankrupt system, and I was very good at it. I achieved everything I ever wanted.”