Dec 11, 2007 5:29 pm US/Eastern
Liberty City 7 Jury Deadlocked But Deliberating
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
A Miami jury remains deadlocked in the "Liberty City 7" case, a trial of seven men accused of plotting to bomb FBI offices, but a federal judge has ordered the panel to continue deliberating and those deliberations resume Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard denied a defense motion for a mistrial. Instead she called the panel into court and read a jury instruction designed to bring the case to a resolution.
The jury of six men and six women have been debating the group's guilt or innocence for six days. They sent a second note to the judge on Monday which indicated they couldn't agree on a verdict against any of the so-called "Liberty City Seven." A similar note was issued last Thursday.
Lenard won't publicly release the contents of the notes or allow them to be read in court. She told the jury it was their "duty to agree upon a verdict", if they could.
If jurors can't reach a verdict, the U.S. Justice Department would have to decide whether to try the case again, drop the charges or negotiate plea agreements with some or all the men.
During closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacqueline Arango told jurors the so-called "Liberty City Seven" were part of a homegrown terrorism cell seeking alliance with al Qaeda by staging bomb attacks on Chicago's Sears Tower and several federal buildings around the country including the FBI Headquarters building in Miami. She also said the ultimate aim of leader Narseal Batiste and his "soldiers" was to use the attacks to spark a broader insurrection -- even freeing prisoners to become guerrilla fighters -- that would topple the U.S. government.
Batiste testified that he invented a fake plot to destroy the Sears Tower in order to con money out of a man who claimed al Qaeda finance connections. That man was actually a paid FBI informant.
Batiste and his 6 co-defendants face up to 70 years in prison each if convicted.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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