Sitting Duck – foto Smith
We drove down to the Akron court house today to see three of the five Ohio would-be bridge bombers get sentenced. One received 11.5 years, the second 9.75 years, the third 8 — plus life-time supervision once they’re released. A 4th defendant is being evaluated, while the 5th testified against the others and brokered his own as-yet unspecified deal.
We knew them from meeting and feeding Occupy Cleveland.
The Judge seemed disturbed he had to sentence them under the government’s terrorism guidelines and gave as short of sentence as he could, about one-third what the government wanted.
The defendants’ lawyers seemed to care for their clients and appeared uncomfortable with the FBI’s CHS (confidential human source) devising the plot and giving drugs, alcohol, money, shelter, jobs and faux-C4 explosives to the five homeless anarchists he’d culled from the Occupy Cleveland movement and talked into trying to blow up a bridge.
Interesting day, partial closure to our Occupy Cleveland experience which began with their birth in the Free Stamp park October 6, 2011. The next day Lady began feeding the downtown occupiers breakfast-for-four every morning for seven months, from day one through May 1st when the city shut them down just days before the new downtown casino opened two blocks away, one day after the FBI busted the anarchists.
Complicated – foto Smith