MLive : Charges dropped against men once accused of bridge terror plot

Charges dropped against men once accused of bridge terror plot

By DAVID N. GOODMAN | The Associated Press | September 6, 2006

DETROIT (AP) — A federal judge has thrown out conspiracy and money laundering charges against three Palestinian-American men who were cleared earlier of accusations that they were plotting a terror attack on Michigan's iconic Mackinac Bridge.

U.S. District Court Magistrate Charles Binder in Bay City ruled Tuesday that federal prosecutors failed to present enough evidence to justify bringing them to trial on charges involving the buying and resale of prepaid cell phones.

Binder dismissed the charges after a preliminary hearing Tuesday for Louai Othman, 23, his brother Adham Othman, 21, and their cousin Maruan Muhareb, 18, all of Mesquite, Texas.

"I'm happy to be going home, and I'm happy that I'm free," Adham Othman said through his lawyer, Christopher McGrath.

Defense lawyers said the Palestinian-American men were targeted because of their Middle Eastern heritage.

"Unfortunately, there's still the stigma now" against the men, said Louai Othman's lawyer, Nabih Ayad. "This is a classical ethnic profiling case."

"We respect the judge and the process," U.S. Attorney Stephen Murphy III said through a spokeswoman. "We're continuing to evaluate the case in light of the decision." He declined further comment.

The three were arrested Aug. 11 after buying large numbers of prepaid cell phones at a Wal-Mart outlet in Caro, about 80 miles north of Detroit.

Tuscola County authorities said they were alarmed by the hundreds of prepaid cell phones they said were found in the men's van and by images on their digital camera of the five-mile-long Mackinac Bridge, which links Michigan's two peninsulas.

They charged the men with collecting or providing materials for terrorist acts and with surveillance of a vulnerable target for terrorist purposes.

The FBI and state police later said there was no imminent threat to the landmark span and no information linking the Othmans and Muhareb to known terrorist groups.

Michigan charges against the men were thrown out Aug. 16. But federal authorities continued to press a separate case against the men, saying the phone purchases were part of an illegal scheme to remove proprietary software and resell the phones.

TracFone Wireless Inc. and Nokia Corp. have filed civil lawsuits elsewhere seeking to stop the practice.

The men were released from the Saginaw County Jail on Aug. 22 after posting bonds of $10,000 each. They flew from Texas to Michigan on Monday to reappear before Binder.

McGrath said the arrests came soon after British authorities broke up what they said was a plot to blow up multiple U.S.-bound airplanes.

"There was a heightened state of paranoia (and) ... a rush to judgment" against the three, the defense lawyer said.

Muhareb said he insisted all along that his phone-buying activities were legal. "This is what I told them from the beginning," he said through his defense attorney, Mona Fadlallah.

She said the case highlighted serious problems with the state of the U.S. justice system.

"This should be frightening for everyone, and not just people of Middle Eastern descent," Fadlallah said.