Team for Orlando Shooter’s Wife Seeking Mistrial After They Learned His Father Worked With FBI
He worked as an FBI informant from 2005 to 2016.
Well, this literally came out of nowhere and who expected this? The defense team for Noor Salman, the wife of the Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen, claimed that prosecutors never told them Mateen’s father worked as an FBI informant.
Now they are seeking a mistrial or dismissal for their client.
Background: Omar killed 49 people in the summer of 2016 at the gay club Pulse in Orlando, FL. The police questioned Salman after the attack and then she left Orlando with their four-year-old son and settled in San Francisco. Authorities arrested Salman in January 2017 and charged her “with obstruction of justice and abetting the attempted provision of material support to a foreign terrorist organization.” Her husband swore allegiance to ISIS.
But that may not happen now since the defense claims that the prosecution never told them that
From The Orlando Sentinel:
Mateen’s father was also investigated after agents assigned to the shooting investigation found receipts for money transfers to Turkey and Afghanistan, according to a motion filed Sunday by Salman’s defense.
Prosecutors didn’t share that information with defense lawyers, they say, in the case against Mateen’s widow, Salman. Now Salman’s lawyers are seeking a mistrial or dismissal of the charges against her.
The motion comes as Salman’s lawyers are slated to begin presenting their case this morning after government prosecutors rested Thursday.
Mateen’s father, Seddique Mateen, was on the government’s witness list but was never called to testify. His wife, Shahla Mateen, testified. According to the newly filed motion, Seddique Mateen acted as an informant at various points in time between January 2005 and June 2016.
Prosecutor Sara Sweeney emailed the defense on Saturday with the information. The defense claims that the prosecution “violated an evidence disclosure law by not informing them sooner.”
The defense team cited the 1963 Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland, which established that the prosecution must hand over all evidence to the defense that might exonerate the defendant. From ClickOrlando:
The government email to Salman’s attorneys also states that in 2012, “An anonymous tip indicated that Seddique Mateen was seeking to raise $50,000-$100,000 via a donation drive to contribute toward an attack against the government of Pakistan.”
According to the motion, the defense states that the decision not to give Noor Salman a polygraph was possibly “based on the FBI’s desire to implicate Noor Salman, rather than Seddique Mateen in order to avoid scrutiny of its own ineptitude with the latter.”
If they had this information, the defense said “they may have argued one of two theories with ‘strong support.'” For instance:
“1) Omar Mateen and his father, rather than Ms. Salman, conspired to support ISIS; or 2) the FBI’s focus on Ms. Salman was based on its own motive to avoid responsibility for its failures with its own informant, Seddique Mateen, as well as his son,” Salman’s attorneys write.
The defense also stated that Seddique’s work with the FBI caused the agency to determine the route to take in 2013 during an investigation when Omar allegedly threatened his coworkers:
“Mateen’s father played a significant role in the FBI’s decision not to seek an indictment from the Justice Department for false statements to the FBI or obstruction of justice against Omar Mateen” during its 2013 investigation into his alleged threats,” the motion stated.
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Comments
How would the father’s putative support of ISIS negate obstruction of justice charges against the wife if she didn’t know about this alleged support (which there’d be no need for discovery if she already knew and disclosed it to her legal team).
Brady and its progeny requires that anything that is even might be exculpatory be disclosed by the Prosecution to the Defense team.
Any violation of Brady is grounds for sanction against the Prosecution, up to and including dismissal of the charges WITH PREJUDICE by the Judge.
Specifically at this point, I don’t see how the Judge does NOT declare a mistrial, and dismiss the charges with prejudice on the grounds that Jeopardy has attached, and that to re-try would subject Noor Salman to double-jeopardy. Please see additional comments below for further commentary.
I believe you are overstating what Brady requires. The evidence must be “material” to the defendant’s guilt or punishment, which is generally been held to mean that disclosure of the evidence would have had a reasonable probability of changing the outcome of the proceeding.
Thankfully, sanity still prevails in some Federal courts…the Judge denied the motion for mistrial. As the Judge noted, “This trial is not about Seddique Mateen. It’s about Noor Salman,”. The Judge found that Mateen’s relationship with the FBI had littler bearing on Salman’s trial.
The
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-pulse-gunman-dad-fbi-informant-20180326-story.html
This case will be dismissed.
There is rot in the FBI. The agency needs to be thoroughly cleaned out.
Knowing Obama’s FBI, the father was not just an informant but someone actively helping to “community organize” Moslem domestic terrorism.
Is there anything the FBI hasn’t screwed up? They should be called the Federal Bureau of Incompetents.
….OR the Department of F.I.B.
This disclosure will set tongues to wagging……..
F.I.B. = Federal Incompetent Bureau
Incompetence? The record is so skewed toward mass-murder that anything short of complicity would be a miracle.
I don’t see the relevance of this information. Maybe that’s why I’m not a judge. Then again, maybe it’s not relevant and the defense is just blowing smoke.
But it sure reveals the total ROT of the F.I.B. and the
Uni-party.
and we are supposed to believe anything Mule Liar posits ?
Wasn’t Mule Liar appointed by Bill Clinton, or somewhere I think I read Mule Liar even worked for the Clintons………
I had this same question, but now I understand the FBI investigated the father for money transfers to Afghanistan and Turkey up to June 5 of that year, a week before the attack, receipts of which were discovered in a search warrant on June 12, the day of the shooting.
That’s getting warmer. It doesn’t sound like they went to the judge and asked that this information be kept sealed. On the one hand, it should be moot because the defense rests on undermining the defendant’s own confession (something I might have scoffed at, but not once I read details and had a bad feeling about the case); on the other hand, this seems like evidence that needed to be exposed. If the investigation into the father – or hiding his informant status – was a higher priority for the American people, they had the option of not bringing the charge against the wife.
“The Deep State Kills Gays”
“…father of Omar Mateen …was an FBI informant for over a decade.
“Could that be the reason the FBI twice interviewed
Omar Mateen and twice determined he was good to go?
http://www.gaypatriot.net/2018/03/26/the-deep-state-kills-gays/
Omar Mateen’s Father Was an FBI Source; Noor Mateen’s Defense Team Was Not Told This Until After the Prosecution Had Rested
—Ace of Spades
http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=374502
This, right here, is the death-knell for this case. If the father was an informant, and that was not disclosed to the defense, that is a material breach of Brady.
Noor Salman would be ENTITLED to a mistrial based on that alone, because she (I would assume) has reasonable recall of any disclosures or statements against penal interest that she might have made to her Father-in-Law.
Kudos to Sweeney for whistleblowing and turning this information over.
But it’s yet another example of deep the cultural rot has spread through American socket. The corruption of institutions like the FBI are equivalent to cancer spreading to the heart and brain. Is it too late to even treat the patient?
Good lord, I was promised hoverboards but we’re still trying to master voice to text… Edit:
… another example of how deep the cultural rot has spread through American society.The corruption of institutions like the FBI are equivalent to cancer spreading to the heart and brain. Is it too late to even treat the patient?
The stories of misfeasance and malfeasance just keep mounting.
https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-testimony-on-microscopic-hair-analysis-contained-errors-in-at-least-90-percent-of-cases-in-ongoing-review
Gee? Ineptitude at the FBI? Nothing to see here. Move along.
No one—I repeat—no one will lose his job, get a bad performance review or otherwise pay ANY consequences for their sheer incompetence.
So, what we have here is information which may or may not be exculpatory, as we do not know exactly what evidence has been put forth in this case. Exactly how would the fact that Mateen was an FBI informant affect whether his daughter-in-law was involved in what she believed was funding for a terrorist organization or any attempt by her to obstruct justice? So far, I have seen NO evidence that the prosecution [including the FBI or the DOJ] suppressed it. And, it is interesting that the defense did not know about this from deposing Mateen, who was on the prosecution’s witness list.
Brady never required the prosecution to turn over everything that it had with regard to anyone involved, especially peripherally, in any criminal case to the defense. The defense is supposed to have access to everything that the prosecution has, but that does not mean that the prosecution has to provide the defendant with a defense strategy.
Well the short argument would be that the husband or father TOLD them they were working for the FBI and they were buying guns and planning to try and catch terrorists for the FBI, but they never raised the issue because there was no evidence.
That’s obviously a blatant lie to us, but definitely a defense that COULD be raised at trial.
The prosecution probably screwed themselves here. Even if she gets convicted its a gigantic hole for multiple appeals.
You lost me.
First the husband was Mateen the Younger, who was the shooter and is now DOA. So, he is off the table here. Therefor, who is the THEM that Mateen the Elder told? If THEM is the defense, then we would expect the defense to subpoena corroboration of this information from the FBI. The defense would also question the agents involved in the case about the elder Mateen being an FBI informant. But, from the story it does not appear that the defense had any knowledge of Mateen the Elder’s association with the FBI. And, if Mateen the Elder was actually acting for the FBI, when he was collecting funds for ISIS, is not relevant, and certainly not exculpatory, unless Noor knew or believed that he was collecting these funds as an agent of the FBI. If she believed that the funds were being collected, for ISIS, without the being done at the behest of the FBI, she is still guilty as charged.
Close. But you’re missing something:
The “why” here, at least according to Brady is irrelevant. It’s the WHAT.
The WHAT is that Seddique Mateen was working with the FBI as a “double agent” with have access to the ISIS underworld. It is possible (however unlikely) that one of his false-flag operations to expose potential terrorists thereafter ensnared his own son, in which case he would be in a position to implicate his daughter-in-law as the defendant. Seddique would KNOW if she was guilty or not, and thus be a vital witness to the DEFENSE if he KNEW that she was not involved due to his FBI contacts.
Or, more scary scenario: that Seddique Mateen, becoming disenchanted with being under the FBI’s thumb on the cheap, decided to personally radicalize his OWN son, and involve his daughter-in-law in a scheme to perform a terrorist attack, with the idea that his son and daughter-in-law would escape capture, or worse, be able to successfully flee the scene, and then Seddique Mateen would be able to leverage his ISIS connections to implicate someone else, thus making him MUCH more valuable as an informant to the FBI, and potentially raising any payments he was receiving for acting as an informant.
There’s LOTS of different ways to spin this. Some of them won’t hold water, but a couple of them are plausible enough to get you to a “reasonable doubt” hung jury.
As to this being news to the defense it apparently was known to True Pundit back in July of 2016:
https://truepundit.com/omar-mateens-wife-located-6600-miles-away-from-orlando/.
Your source says the son was an FBI informant. It says nothing about the father.
Mac, with respect, I don’t think the issue is whether the information is exculpatory. The issue is why the prosecution refused to turn over that information for the court to decide if it was exculpatory.
Where is there any evidence that the prosecution refused to turn over this information to the court? As I read this, the court did not know it existed until today, when the motion was filed. Also, there is no indication that the prosecution refused to turn over this information to the defense. It certainly sounds as though the defense had no knowledge of Mateen’s relationship with the FBI, prior to Saturday. The prosecution does not routinely turn evidence “over to the court” unless the court specifically asks for that evidence to be provided or when it is introduced into evidence during trial.
Brady only requires that the prosecution disclose materially exculpatory evidence to the defense. As I said, I do not see this information being exculpatory. If Noor believed that her husband was collecting funds and turning those funds over to ISIS or someone whom he believed was an agent of ISIS, then whether this was known to the FBI, at the time, or even if it was an FBI sting operation, would not matter, unless she knew that her husband was doing this FOR the FBI.
Where is there any evidence that the prosecution refused to turn over this information to the court?
As above, Brady does not require turning the information over to the COURT, but disclosing it to the DEFENSE (at least sufficient to know to ask a relevant question).
Brady only requires that the prosecution disclose materially exculpatory evidence to the defense.
Sort of. The Case Law says that, but is squishy on what is “materially exculpatory.” More important is the Assistant US Attorney Discovery policy:
Additional impeachment information that must be disclosed.
A prosecutor must disclose information that either casts a substantial doubt upon the accuracy of any evidence—including but not limited to witness testimony—the prosecutor intends to rely on to prove an element of any crime charged, or might have a significant bearing on the admissibility of prosecution evidence. This information must be disclosed regardless of whether it is likely to make the difference between conviction and acquittal of the defendant for a charged crime.
Information. Unlike the requirements of Brady and its progeny, which focus on evidence, the disclosure requirement of this section applies to information regardless of whether the information subject to disclosure would itself constitute
admissible evidence.
For further review: see fully the Assistant US Attorney Discovery policy.
https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/usao/pages/attachments/2015/04/01/can_discovery_policy.pdf
The Court doesn’t get to decide if it’s exculpatory. The Prosecution is OBLIGATED to turn it over, pretty much in all circumstances.
I suppose they could have sought an order of protection from the Court FIRST (which effectively defeats the purpose in this type of case).
Failure to inform the defense of Omar’s father’s relationship with the FBI is the least of the Government’s legal problems. The defendant’s brutal 17 hour interrogation resulting in her “confession” about scoping out the club has been disproved based on cellphone triangulation, as well as other misconduct. See: https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2018/03/26/governments-case-wife-orlando-pluse-shooter-tatters-multiple-instances-federal-misconduct/
Again I ask, is there a mass murderer that the FBI didn’t know about before his attack?
I defer to others to explain how this should affect this prosecution — but it the elder Mateen’s FBI connection may very well explain why leads on the younger man weren’t followed up. This doesn’t make the FBI look any better than I already thought in this case.
The fact remains that the father of a guy who killed 47 people just 2 weeks before was sitting within a few feet of a Presidential candidate at a rally.
I somehow doubt any other candidate would have gotten a yawn out of the media for that
This isn’t surprising when you consider that obama had ALL language in any military/intelligence training or field manuals concerning islam removed from all federal publications. Put yourselves in the shoes of the average field agent and try to imagine bringing this kind of information to the leftist cabal at the top of the FBI. Your career would be over if you did it twice. A perfect example of this mindset is the Ft. Hood shooting and the reports about Nidal Hasan exposing his anti-American rhetoric in his classes. Yet no one did anything because of the PC mindset and the obama doctrine of islam is the religion of peace.
Just read that the judge rejected this request; apparently it was not seen as relevant to the defendant on trial.
Update. 🙂
Sanity still prevails in some Federal courts, apparently.