TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Four Black rights activists were convicted Thursday in Florida federal court of conspiring to act as unregistered Russian agents.
Jurors deliberated all day Wednesday and returned the guilty verdicts late Thursday morning, the Tampa Bay Times reported. The conspiracy charges carry up to five years in prison. No sentencing date has been set.
All four of those convicted are or were affiliated with the African People’s Socialist Party and Uhuru Movement, which has locations in St. Petersburg, Florida, and St. Louis.
They include Omali Yeshitela, the 82-year-old chairman of the U.S.-based organization focused on Black empowerment and the effort to obtain reparations for slavery and what it considers the past genocide of Africans. Also convicted were Penny Hess, 78, and Jesse Nevel, 34, two leaders of branches of the group’s white allies. A fourth defendant, Augustus C. Romain Jr., 38, was kicked out of the Uhurus in 2018 and established his own group in Atlanta called The Black Hammer.
Yeshitela, Hess and Nevel had also been charged with the more serious crimes of acting as agents of a foreign government, but jurors found them not guilty of those charges.
Attorneys finished their closing arguments late Tuesday. The trial had been scheduled to last a month but moved quickly, concluding after a week of testimony.
Prosecutors said the defendants knowingly partnered with the Russian government to help the Kremlin sow political discord and interfere in U.S. elections.
Defense attorneys argued that Aleksandr Ionov, who runs an organization known as the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, concealed from the Uhurus his relationship with Russian intelligence. The attorneys also called the government's case “dangerous” for the First Amendment and asserted that the government was trying to silence the Uhurus for expressing their views.
Three Russians, two of whom prosecutors say are Russian intelligence agents, are also charged in the case but have not been arrested.
Although there are some echoes of claims that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, U.S. District Judge William Jung previously has said those issues were not part of this case.
Prosecutors have said the group's members acted under Russian direction to stage protests in 2016 claiming Black people have been victims of genocide in the U.S. They also alleged that the members took other actions for the following six years that would benefit Russia, including opposition to U.S. policy in the Ukraine war.
The defense attorneys, however, have said that despite their connections to the Russian organization, the actions taken by the African People's Socialist Party and Uhuru Movement were aligned precisely with what they have advocated for in more than 50 years. Yeshitela founded the organization in 1972 as a Black empowerment group opposed to vestiges of colonialism around the world.
FILE - Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement, St. Petersburg, addresses the recent killings of black males, and police on July 8, 2016, in Dallas. (Scott Keeler/The Tampa Bay Times via AP, File)
Black rights activists convicted of conspiracy, not guilty of acting as Russian agents
Black rights activists convicted of conspiracy, not guilty of acting as Russian agents
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The FBI and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service on Tuesday were investigating the origin of suspicious packages that have been sent to or received by elections officials in more than a dozen states, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or that any of the packages contained hazardous material.
The latest packages were sent to elections officials in Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York and Rhode Island. Mississippi authorities reported a package was delivered there Monday, and the Connecticut Secretary of State's office said the FBI alerted it of a package that was intercepted.
The FBI is collecting the packages, some of which contained “an unknown substance,” agency spokesperson Kristen Setera in Boston said in a statement.
“We are also working with our partners to determine how many letters were sent, the individual or individuals responsible for the letters, and the motive behind the letters,” she said. “As this is an ongoing matter we will not be commenting further on the investigation, but the public can be assured safety is our top priority.”
It’s the second time in the past year that suspicious packages were mailed to election officials in multiple states.
The latest scare comes as early voting has begun in several states ahead of the high-stakes elections for president, Senate, Congress and key statehouse offices, causing disruption in an already tense voting season. Local election directors are beefing up security to keep workers and polling places safe while also ensuring that ballots and voting procedures won’t be tampered with.
The National Association of Secretaries of State condemned what it described as a “disturbing trend” of threats to election workers leading up to Nov. 5, as well as the second apparent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
“This must stop, period,” the group said. "Our democracy has no place for political violence, threats or intimidation of any kind.”
On Tuesday, the FBI notified the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office that postal service investigators had identified a suspicious envelope delivered to a building housing state offices. The package was intercepted. No employees from the office had contact with the envelope, which is now in the hands of the FBI.
Packages also were sent to secretaries of state and election offices in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Wyoming this week. The packages forced evacuations in Iowa, Oklahoma and Wyoming. Hazmat crews in several states quickly determined the material was harmless.
The Mississippi Secretary of State’s Elections Division said it received a package similar to those sent to other states and that the state Department of Homeland Security was testing it. The division said it has notified county election officials to be on the lookout.
Oklahoma officials said the material sent to the election office there contained flour.
“We have specific protocols in place for situations such as this,” Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate said in a statement after the evacuation of the six-story Lucas State Office Building in Des Moines.
A state office building in Topeka, Kansas, was evacuated due to suspicious mail sent to both the secretary of state and attorney general, Kansas Highway Patrol spokesperson April M. McCollum said in a statement.
Topeka Fire Department crews found several pieces of mail with an unknown substance on them, though a field test found no hazardous materials, spokesperson Rosie Nichols said. Several employees were exposed to it and were being monitored.
In Oklahoma, the State Election Board received a suspicious envelope in the mail containing a multi-page document and a white, powdery substance, agency spokesperson Misha Mohr said. Testing determined the substance was flour.
State workers in an office building next to the Wyoming Capitol in Cheyenne were sent home Monday pending testing of a white substance mailed to the secretary of state’s office.
Suspicious letters were sent to election offices and government buildings in at least six states last November, including the same building in Kansas that received suspicious mail Monday. While some of the letters contained fentanyl, even the suspicious mail that was not toxic delayed the counting of ballots in some local elections.
One of the targeted offices was in Fulton County, Georgia, the largest voting jurisdiction in one of the nation’s most important swing states. Four county election offices in Washington state had to be evacuated as election workers were processing ballots cast, delaying vote-counting.
The letters caused election workers around the country to stock up the overdose reversal medication naloxone.
Election offices across the United States have taken steps to increase security amid an onslaught of harassment and threats following the 2020 election and the false claims that it was rigged.
LeBlanc reported from Boston. Christina Almeida Cassidy in Atlanta; Anthony Izaguirre in Albany, New York; Susan Haigh in Norwich, Connecticut; Jim Salter in O’Fallon, Missouri; Isabella Volmert in Lansing, Michigan; Mead Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyoming; Jonathan Mattise in Nashville, Tennessee; Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City and John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this report.
The Oklahoma State Election Board Office inside the state Capitol in Oklahoma City, was one of at least five states in the U.S. which election officials received suspicious packages on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Sean Murphy)
FILE - William R. Snodgrass Tennessee Tower stands June 22, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)
The Oklahoma State Election Board Office inside the state Capitol in Oklahoma City, was one of at least five states in the U.S. which election officials received suspicious packages on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Sean Murphy)
The Oklahoma State Election Board Office inside the state Capitol in Oklahoma City, was one of at least five states in the U.S. which election officials received suspicious packages on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Sean Murphy)
A hazmat crew from the National Guard's Civilian Support Team investigates after a suspicious package was delivered to election officials at the Missouri Secretary of State's Jefferson City, Mo., office on Tuesday Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Summer Ballentine)
