Posted on 10/16/2006 4:35:58 PM PDT by bd476
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York attorney convicted of aiding terrorism by helping an imprisoned Egyptian client smuggle messages to militant followers was sentenced on Monday to 28 months in prison.
Lynne Stewart, 67, was convicted in February 2005 of helping her client, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, to contact the Islamic Group, which the U.S. government lists as a terrorist organization.
Prosecutors said messages Stewart passed on for Abdel-Rahman could have incited violence in Egypt. The sheikh was convicted in 1995 of conspiring to attack U.S. targets in a plot prosecutors said included the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Stewart, long a defender of the poor and unpopular, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge John Koeltl in Manhattan federal court. She could have been sentenced to more than 15 years in prison on charges of supporting terrorism and prosecutors had sought up to 30 years.
Koeltl, who cited Stewart's long service as a defense attorney as grounds for the relatively short prison sentence, allowed her to remain free pending appeal of her conviction.
"We will claim victory here. We are happy and humbled to be going home today," Stewart told a crowd of 150 supporters and media outside the courthouse.
The civil rights lawyer has defended her actions, saying she was only zealously representing her client.
"I hope the government realizes their error ... I hope the appeal will vindicate me and make me back into the lawyer I was."
Tagged as both heroine and radical leftist, Stewart is the only U.S. lawyer to be indicted on terrorism charges. Civil rights groups say the case stemmed from Bush administration efforts to discourage the defense of accused terrorists.
U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia said in a statement that the government was disappointed with Stewart's sentence and would consider an appeal.
OTHER CONVICTIONS
Stewart was arrested six months after the September 11 attacks and was prosecuted along with Arabic translator Mohamed Yousry and New York postal worker Ahmed Sattar.
Sattar, 47, who faced a life sentence for being convicted of conspiring to kill people outside the United States, was sentenced on Monday to 24 years in prison.
Yousry, convicted of aiding in the smuggling of Abdel-Rahman's messages from prison, was sentenced to 20 months.
Evidence in the case against Stewart included a call the lawyer made to a Reuters correspondent in Egypt in which she read a statement issue by the cleric saying he had withdrawn his support for the Islamic Group's cease-fire in Egypt. That correspondent was subpoenaed in the case.
Since her 2002 indictment, Stewart has spoken at rallies, undergone treatment for breast cancer and become the subject of a documentary called "Who's Afraid of Lynne Stewart?"
Outside the court Stewart joked to reporters that she had prepared for "the worst," meaning incarceration, and had brought two mystery novels, cancer medication and a pair of sweatpants for "going inside."
That's exactly the message the Judge gift-wrapped and sent to the terrorists.
Should have received a swinging set of trap doors and a snapping rope.
How do you explain this sentence?
If she was convicted in February 2005, why is she being sentenced in October 2006 - 20 months later?
Not only that, she will remain out on bond while appealing. I doubt she will ever see a cell.
The judge is probably affiliated in some way with a communist organization such as the National Lawyer's Guild.
Too bad it's not a stake through her black heart. She abused her law license to help terrorists plot the murders of innocent people.
I guess these would be murderous thugs like the black panthers and the weather underground.
Bonaparte, I believe that you are onto something there. It just boggles the mind that the judge used the traitor's alleged and so-called good works prior to her enabling terrorists as an excuse to give her leniency.
And she's walking. I'm sorry Bonaparte, but I'm angry still hours later. How is it that she gets to walk? Has the world flipped upside down?
For Koeltl to cut her a break because of her service as a defense lawyer is insulting to every family member who lost a loved one on 9/11, and is specious at best. It's another glaring example of the bar looking out for each other. Why the hell would her work as a lawyer be grounds for leniency when it was in her role as lawyer that she committed a serious breach of law by directly engaging in a terrorist act? And if Koeltl thinks her record as a lawyer speaks well of her, that says more about him than it does about Stewart. Stewart is a commie 60's radical herself whose life's work has been to defend a string of violent who's whos who are nothing but a bunch America-hating anarchists, murderers and thugs.
Koeltl will make sure that this woman who should be shot at dawn by a firing squad will never serve a day in prison.
Benedict Arnold also was a hero, before he became a traitor. That doesn't change the fact he was a traitor.
I posted a lot last night and tonight on the other Stewart thread about the incestuous connections between the Clintons and Stewart, and warned she wouldn't get more than three years. You can read about it there.
The administration of justice is non-partisan?
Kindly share with us what you're smokin'.
She should have at least received the 30 years set by Federal guidelines.
Thanks Jezebelle!
I'm sure if you look into the history of any traitor you'll find that they groomed their dog, watered their houseplants and every now and then may have helped a Senior Citizen cross the street.
We have sent this message again and again into the world. You can lie under oath if you are a liberal leftist Democrat President. You can betray your country if you have at any time provided money or legal counsel to enemies of the State.
Where do we patriots stand now?
Indeed. It was a slap in the face to the American people. It was as though he was laughing behind the scenes at putting forward the in-our-face grotesquely ironic notion that any lawyer's career, especially one like Stewart's that has beend dedicated to freeing home-grown commie terrorists who maim and murder innocents they justified through absurd claims of protesting "political prisoners", when that position as a lawyer, and the access that goes along with it, is used to advance terrorist acts by our sworn enemies, should be rewarded.
By the way, Stewart, like her radical 60's clients, is closely associated with and probably a member of the WWP. Read all your stomach can stand of this woman and some of her associates here: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=3340
She was clearly a traitor, knowingly helping our enemies, who are not only at war with us, but want to kill as many innocent people, as they can.
They should have made an example out of her: it should have been easy to convict her of treason and give her the ultimate punishment. That would make the flock of lawyers running to Gitmo to help the terrorists communicate with other terrorists stop and think for a minute. (I read recently that the Red Cross was meeting with the terrorist prisoners, including the planner of the 9-11 attacks, ALONE, and taking letters from them, uncensored "to their families".)
...keep in mind also this American hating slug was and is supported by George Soros...a democratic favorite
Doogle
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