By ROXANA HEGEMAN, Associated Press
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Jurors began deliberating Tuesday afternoon in the case against three Kansas militia members accused of scheming to bomb a mosque and apartment complex housing Somalis.
During closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Mattivi credited another militia member for alerting authorities, calling Dan Day the “one man standing between these three defendants and apartment complex full of innocent people.”
Curtis Allen, Patrick Stein, Gavin Wright face charges of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and conspiracy against civil rights. Wright also faces a charge of lying to the FBI.
The government has argued the men formed a splinter group of the militia Kansas Security Force that came to be known as “the Crusaders.”
The three men were indicted in October 2016 for an attack planned for the day after the Presidential election in the meatpacking town of Garden City, 220 miles (350 kilometers) west of Wichita. The government has said that the men wanted to “exterminate cockroaches,” saying they wanted to send the message that Muslims are not welcomed.
Prosecutors played a jailhouse conversation in which Stein tells his mother, “We were (expletive) infiltrated, mom.”
Day was “the one militia member who decided to do the right thing,” Mattivi said.
Not only did Day alert authorities to the escalating talk of violence, but he agreed to secretly record months of conversations. There were times he was scared for his life, but couldn’t live with himself if that apartment building got blown away, Mattivi told jurors.
“The heart of that hero is the heart of this case,” Mattivi said.
But defense attorneys tried to cast doubt on Day’s credibility as an informant who was paid more than $32,000 during the investigation. It was Day who had suggested the apartment complex as the target, and the FBI picked it because it was a rental property that would allow the government to claim federal jurisdiction in the case, said Melody Brannon, the attorney representing Allen.
“Make no mistake there was a conspiracy — it’s just not the one the government wants you to believe,” Brannon said. “There was indeed a conspiracy but the conspiracy was between Patrick Stein, Dan Day and the FBI.”
Brannon told jurors that the government was “investigating for the conviction, not for the truth.”
She urged jurors not to trust a paid informant who choose the target, asking them to return a not guilty verdict “to tell the government that their evidence and their tactics are too untrustworthy.”
Defense attorney Jim Pratt, who represents Stein, told jurors that the other militia members who had not alerted authorities didn’t so not because they were scared but because they knew the men were just venting and didn’t take their words seriously.
“All words, not action,” Pratt said.
Day and the government gave Stein a sense of purpose and allowed him to continue down a path they created for him to build chargeable offenses, Pratt said.
“It is not morally right to hold such hate, but it is not legally wrong,” Pratt said. “We all have the right to hate.”
Defense attorney Kari Schmidt, who represents Wright, told jurors that her client was not at many of the key moments in the government’s plot.
But the government argued that the defendants manufactured explosives and brought 300 pounds of fertilizer to an undercover agent to make explosives. They planned to put razor blades, nails and ball bearings in the bombs to make them more deadly.
“Defendants didn’t just express their views, the defendants plotted to murder dozens of innocent men women and children,” Mattivi said.
And he said the government left other militia members alone regardless of their views or their guns.
He noted the government that the defendants so distrust has given them a fair trial.
“The evidence in this case has showcased the very best of the FBI, the very best of the United States,” Mattivi said.
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12:45 p.m.
Defense attorneys took aim during closing arguments at the paid informant who secretly recorded hundreds of hours of interviews with three militia members accused of plotting to bomb an apartment complex housing Somalis in Kansas.
Attorney Melody Brannon told jurors that the men’s conversations were all bravado, saying if informant Dan Day had not shown up, nothing would have happened. Day was paid more than $32,000 during the investigation. She says the government was investigating to get a conviction, not the truth.
Patrick Stein, Gavin Wright and Curtis Allen are charged with conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and conspiracy against civil rights in the plot targeting Muslims in Garden City. Wright is also charged with lying to the FBI.
Attorney Jim Pratt acknowledged that his client, Stein, did compare Somalis to an infestation of cockroaches and referred to himself as the Orkin man. But he says it was just words, not action.
Pratt said it is not morally right to hold such hate, but it is not legally wrong, adding “we all have the right to hate.”
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11 a.m.
A prosecutor is crediting a courageous militia member with saving the lives of innocent Somali immigrants targeted in a plot to bomb a mosque and apartment complex in Kansas.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Mattivi told jurors during closing arguments that informant Dan Day is the hero at the heart of the case. He says none of the other militia people who learned of the plot but refused to join it had the guts to inform authorities. Day risked his life to record months of conversations that allowed jurors to hear for themselves the plans for the attack.
Patrick Stein, Gavin Wright and Curtis Allen are charged with conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and conspiracy against civil rights in the plot targeting Muslims in Garden City. Wright is also charged with lying to the FBI.
Mattivi says the defendants planned to place bombs around the apartment complex, which would have been stuffed with razorblades, nails and ball bearings to inflict maximum carnage.
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WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Prosecutors and defense attorneys will make their closing arguments this week to jurors deciding the fate of three men accused of plotting to bomb an apartment complex housing Somali immigrants.
The jury in the trial Patrick Stein, Gavin Wright and Curtis Allen returns to the courtroom on Tuesday to get their final instructions and to hear arguments before getting the case for deliberation. The men are charged with conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and conspiracy against civil rights. Wright also faces a charge of lying to the FBI.
The government’s case featured months of profanity-laced recordings. Prosecutors say the men formed a splinter group of the militia, Kansas Security Force.
Defense attorneys have said the FBI set up the men and the talk about violence wasn’t serious.
