Niner
Long time Websleuther
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2003
- Messages
- 84,291
- Reaction score
- 281,594
Judge sentences 4 family members in kidnapping case of Jonesboro toddler to life
Four family members of a Jonesboro toddler found dead in a compound in New Mexico will spend the rest of their lives in prison for kidnapping and terrorism charges.
Mar. 6, 2024
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - A U.S. judge on Wednesday sentenced four family members to life in prison for convictions stemming from a federal terrorism and kidnapping case that began in 2017 with the search for a toddler who went missing from Georgia and was later found dead when authorities raided a squalid compound in northern New Mexico.
[.....]
The defendants were unsuccessful in their arguments that the severity of the sentences violated their constitutional rights. That will be just one of the arguments they plan to bring up when appealing their convictions. At trial, they suggested that the case was the product of "government overreach" and that they were targeted because they are Muslim.
The fifth defendant — Jany Leveille, a Haitian national — avoided being part of a three-week trial last fall by pleading guilty to conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and being in possession of a firearm while unlawfully in the United States. Under the terms of her plea agreement, she had faced up to 17 years in prison.
Judge William Johnson sentenced her to 15 years, noting that Leveille had received treatment for a diagnosis of acute schizophrenia that followed her arrest in 2018. She had undergone competency evaluations and began taking medication.
[.....]
Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, the boy’s father and Leveille’s partner, was convicted of three terrorism-related charges. Wahhaj’s brother-in-law, Lucas Morton, also was convicted of terrorism charges, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, and kidnapping that resulted in the boy’s death. Wahhaj’s two sisters — Hujrah and Subhanah Wahhaj — were convicted only on the kidnapping charges.
Defense attorneys for the sisters argued that a life sentence was grossly disproportionate to the crimes their clients were accused of committing and that the women had no control over the situation. Prosecutors disputed those claims.
