Five of "Liberty City Seven" Found Guilty in Sears Tower Plot

By Marcus Gilmer in News on May 12, 2009 7:30PM

The original Liberty City Seven. Lemorin was acquitted in 2007 and Naudemar Herrerar was acquitted today; the remaining five were all found guilty.

Five men accused of plotting to team up with al-Qaida and blow up the Sears Tower, as well as federal buildings in Miami, were found guilty today while another was acquitted; a seventh man originally charged, Lyglenson Lemorin, was acquitted in 2007. It was the third trial for the group, the previous two having fallen apart due to dead-locked juries. According to the Miami Herald:

On trial were Narseal Batiste, 35; Patrick Abraham, 29; Stanley Grant Phanor, 33; Rotschild Augustine, 25; Burson Augustin, 24, and Naudimar Herrera, 25.

The indictment charged the men with four counts of conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization; provide material support to terrorists; destroy buildings with explosives; and levy war against the U.S. government in a seditious act.

Batiste was found guilty on all four counts. Jurors also convicted all the other defendants but Herrera on the two material support counts.

Combined, the four conspiracy counts carry up to 70 years in prison.

The case, a left-over from the George W. Bush administration, has stirred controversy. An undercover agent posing as a terrorist financier infiltrated the group of men, named for the inner-city Miami neighborhood they were living in at the time, and offered them money to take part in several terrorist plots. The defense has long argued that the men had no intention of actually going through with the plots and were only going along with the plans in hopes of getting money. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacqueline Arango countered, "What's relevant is their intention - what they wanted to do...They all agreed to sell out their country for money. The fact that they did so for the mighty U.S. dollar is no excuse." [AP via Tribune]