Posted on 06/05/2015 3:35:19 AM PDT by cotton1706
Former Gov. Michael Dukakis says a Cambridge man facing five years in federal prison for repeatedly lying to the FBI about his pal Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is “a fine young man” who “could have a great future in public service.”
Dukakis went to bat for Robel Kidane Phillipos, 21, in a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock ahead of Phillipos’ sentencing today for making false statements to the FBI in its investigation of the Boston Marathon bombings. Prosecutors want five years.
Phillipos and Tsarnaev, both 21, grew up together in Cambridge and were classmates at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
Dukakis’ wife, Kitty, and Phillipos’ mother were both social workers at the International Institute of Boston. Dukakis took Phillipos to the 2004 Democratic Convention in Boston and testified as a character witness for him at his trial.
“I have always believed that he could have a great future in public service,” Dukakis says. He called Phillipos “a young man who could and should have a great future ahead of him. For the life of me, I can’t understand why justice would be served by incarcerating him.”
Phillipos was present in Tsarnaev’s dorm room when classmates Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov removed evidence. The FBI had made the Tsarnaev brothers’ photo public. MIT police officer Sean Collier was killed later that night, and his family has said the Tsarnaev pals might have been able to prevent that.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonherald.com ...
SWEET!!!
Maybe it was a draw?
Did he debate Howard Zinn while he was there?
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