A grinning, gloating Lynne Stewart declared “victory” yesterday after a federal judge sentenced the civil-rights lawyer to just 28 months behind bars for helping a U.S.-hating terror mastermind communicate with his jihadi warriors.
The sentence was a sliver of the 30 years sought by prosecutors.
“I can do that standing on my head!” Stewart boasted of the light prison term.
Judge John Koeltl’s extraordinary leniency was a blow to the federal prosecutors who had won a conviction against the 67-year-old Stewart.
She had been found guilty of providing material support to terrorists by helping her jailed client – blind Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, the suspected mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing – communicate with his followers.
Koeltl said Stewart was guilty of “extraordinarily severe criminal conduct” with “potentially lethal consequences” by smuggling messages for Abdel-Rahman and issuing inflammatory public statements.
Yet he ruled that a light sentence was justified, given Stewart’s treatment for breast cancer and her 30-year career representing poor and unpopular clients.
“Ms. Stewart performed a public service not only to her clients, but to the nation,” he said. “It is clear that prison will be particularly difficult for this defendant.”
In addition to imposing the light term, Koeltl also ruled that Stewart could remain free on bail while she appeals her conviction.
“Thank you, Judge,” said a teary-eyed Stewart, who briefly rested her head on the table in relief.
Outside court, a beaming Stewart said, “I hope the government realizes their error because I am back out – and I’m staying out pending an appeal that I hope will vindicate me and make me back into the lawyer I was.
“I feel that it’s a victory for doing good works all one’s life. You get time off for good behavior usually at the end of your prison term. I got it at the beginning.”
U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia issued a statement saying he was “disappointed” in the sentence. “We will be exploring our appellate options.”
But Stewart crowed to more than 100 cheering supporters outside Manhattan federal court: “This is a great victory against an overreaching government.”
Stewart was arrested six months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and accused of violating strict prison rules by helping the Egyptian-born Abdel-Rahman spread the word to kill those who did not buy into his extremist interpretation of Islamic law.
The sheik was serving a life sentence for plotting to blow up five New York landmarks, including the Holland Tunnel and George Washington Bridge, and to assassinate Egypt’s president when Stewart helped him communicate with his followers and leaders of an Egyptian-based terrorist organization.
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft brought the indictment against Stewart, as well as against Mohamed Yousry, an Arabic interpreter, and Ahmed Abdel Sattar, a postal worker.
With the possibility of life behind bars still looming large yesterday morning, an emotional Stewart appeared to tremble as she entered the packed courtroom.
Prepared for the worst, her husband, Ralph Poynter, brought along a bag containing medication for his wife, who has undergone radiation and surgery for her cancer.
He also had with him a Robert Goddard book, “Play to the End,” and a pair of sweatpants for her because, she said, “I wasn’t going to jail in a dress.”
Meanwhile, a throng of Stewart’s supporters who could not get seats filled the courthouse hallway, chanting, “Set Lynne free!”
“The end of my career truly is like a sword in my side,” Stewart told the judge before the sentence was imposed. “I don’t want to be in prison. I don’t believe I need to be in prison. I believe I still have contributions to make to society.”
Defense lawyer Josh Dratel said: “This situation is already tragic.”
Stewart has admitted to knowingly violating prison rules, but denies condoning violence and claims she was just trying to do her job as a lawyer by looking after Abdel-Rahman’s interests.
Defense lawyer Elizabeth Fink argued that Stewart made “foolish” mistakes by violating prison rules and begged the judge, “Please don’t send her to prison, because if you send her to prison, she’s going to die.”
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Dember refuted Stewart’s defense that she was wrongly targeted by the feds in the wake of 9/11.
“This case had nothing to do with Sept. 11, Your Honor,” Dember said. “She knew full well what she was doing was a criminal act, and she didn’t want to be caught.”
Also yesterday, Koeltl sentenced Sattar to 24 years behind bars for conspiring to kill and kidnap people in a foreign country.
Sattar, 47, was convicted of conspiring to kill people overseas by helping to compose a chilling “fatwa” that prosecutors said called for “the killing of Jews everywhere.”
“I am not a terrorist, Your Honor,” said Sattar, who faced a maximum sentence of life behind bars.
The third defendant, Yousry, 51, an Arabic interpreter, received a 20-month prison term.
“He is kind of a footnote in this case,” said defense lawyer David Stern, whose client could have faced up to 20 years behind bars.
When it came to Stewart, Koeltl found that prison time was necessary as punishment, but praised the longtime civil-rights lawyer for her dedication to her clients over the past three decades – and noted that no one was hurt as the result of the crimes in the case.
In a letter Stewart sent to Koeltl last month, she wrote: “If I have a tragic flaw, it is that I care too much for my clients. I am soft-hearted to the point of self-abnegation,” according to the New York Times.
As supporters showered Stewart with bouquets of red roses outside court, she said, “I don’t think anybody would say going to jail for 28 months is anything anyone would look forward to, but as my clients have told me, ‘I can do that standing on my head.’ ”
Members of the law-enforcement community expressed outrage at the light sentence.
Gus Danese, president of the Port Authority’s Police Benevolent Association, said, “She deserved the maximum penalty. As far as I’m concerned, in light of the 1993 bombing and the 9/11 attack, she’s a terrorist herself.”
“Anyone who believes in helping terrorists and their cause should be willing to serve the maximum penalty. With a 28-month sentence, she’ll soon be out doing it again.”
An investigator who worked on the case said, “It’s a shame she’s getting off so lightly. If a cop or some other law-enforcement person did the same thing, they’d throw the book at him. Isn’t a lawyer supposed to know what she’s doing?”
Additional reporting by Marsha Kranes and Murray Weiss
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NEW YORK POST
‘As long as the terrorists and their facilitators, like Lynne Stewart, don’t actually pull off another 9/11 – that is to say, as long as they don’t kill thousands of Americans – they get wrist slaps.’
EDITORIAL: PAGE 28
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Crimes against America
Lynne Stewart was found guilty of:
* Conspiring to defraud the government – She carried a letter from an Islamic militant to imprisoned 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman (below right), despite a federal restriction that prevented him from communicating with his Islamic fundamentalist followers in Egypt.
* Conspiring to provide and conceal material support to terrorist activity – She passed the letter – urging the sheik to end his support for a cease-fire between his Islamic guerrilla followers and the Egyptian government – to Abdel-Rahman and then held a press conference on his behalf criticizing the cease-fire, in effect encouraging terrorist attacks on tourists and police in Egypt.
* Providing and concealing material support to terrorist activity. – She carried out the above conspiracy.
* Making a false statement – Stewart broke an agreement to use translators at her meetings with Abdel-Rahman solely for legal matters, and used them to pass messages to the sheik’s followers in Egypt. She also ignored a promise not use her legal visits, mail and phone calls with the sheik to pass messages to militants.
* Making a false statement (second count) – She broke an agreement to abide by federal restrictions imposed on the sheik that limited his outside contact to his wife and lawyers.