Rasmieh Odeh Tag

By now, readers of Legal Insurrection know all about Rasmea Odeh, and her convictions for a 1969 supermarket bombing in Jerusalem for which she was convicted in 1970, and immigration fraud, for which she was conficted in Detroit in November 2014. As Rasmea's supporters hold fundraisers, letter writing campaigns, student events, and livestreams to celebrate Rasmea as a hero, the families of Rasmea's victims mourn. Rasmea will be sentenced in the Detroit case on March 12, 2015. She filed motions in court for a new trial and for judgment to be entered in her favor, citing alleged trial errors. In an Order issued today (full embed at bottom of post), , Hon. Gershwin A Drain denied the motions, lambasting Rasmea's attorney's for submitting perfunctory papers in support of the motions.

As an initial matter, Defendant’s Motion for a New Trial is so lacking in legal authority and argument, it should be denied on this basis alone. Defendant claims the Court committed nine legal errors, yet fails to cite a single case, statute, rule or other authority supporting her assertion. Defendant did not even include the legal standard for granting new trials. Nor does she develop her arguments in any meaningful way. Moreover, it is not clear why Defendant re-raises numerous arguments already thoroughly considered and rejected by this Court, particularly in light of the fact that she offers no new arguments explaining why this Court’s original conclusions were incorrect.

At age 89, Roslyn Joffe left a message about the death of her son, Edward: "I could never get over that and it overshadowed all my joy"...

Rasmea Odeh, convicted in Israel of involvement in a supermarket bombing that killed two students and in Detroit of immigration fraud, was released yesterday on $50,000 cash bond. Prosecutors had planned to challenge the source of the bond money, but withdrew that challenge. Odeh's guilt on the bombing and other terrorist activity, and the immigration fraud, is beyond serious doubt, notwithstanding the propaganda hyperbole by anti-Israel activists and websites supporting her. Odeh will be sentenced in March. She faces 10 years in prison, but almost certainly will receive a small fraction of that. Regardless, she will be deported after her prison sentence. Yet Odeh's inability to acknowledge her guilt on the immigration charge, and defiant claims that the immigration conviction was unjust and based on racism, may result in a longer prison sentence than otherwise could be expected.

On December 11, 2014, federal court in Detroit will hold a hearing whether the court will accept $50,000 cash bond posted on behalf of convicted immigration fraudster Rasmieh (Rasmea) Odeh, who never disclosed her Israeli conviction and prison sentence for killing to students in a supermarket bombing, and other offenses. As summary of the fact of the case and her guilt have been addressed here many times. The hyperbolic propaganda campaign on her behalf by anti-Israel activists and websites is belied by the historical record of Odeh's guilt. After Odeh was jailed pending sentencing, her supporters launched a furious campaign claiming that she was was put in prison isolation (also called lockdown) as part of a targeting by the U.S. government and that her approximately two weeks in lockdown amounted to torture.

Rasmea Odeh's horrific treatment in prison #FreeRasmeaNow #Justice4Rasmea http://t.co/VCvvISmmWF via @PalestineinUSA

— Palestine in America (@PalestineInUSA) December 5, 2014

#FreeRasmeaNow: Arbitrarily held in solitary confinement for the past 12 days! Demand #Justice4Rasmea http://t.co/7LldsqU5Po

— #NYC2Palestine (@NYC2Palestine) December 5, 2014

Odeh's defense lawyer said:

Want convicted immigration fraudster kept in jail until source of bond money determined....

Rasmieh (Rasmea) Odeh, the terrorist convicted in Israel of a supermarket bombing that killed two students, was convicted in federal court in Detroit on November 10, 2014, of immigration fraud for lying on her visa and naturalization applications. For details on why Odeh was guilty as charged in Israel and Detroit, see my post Rasmea Odeh rightly convicted of Israeli supermarket bombing and U.S. immigration fraud . She faces 10 years in prison, but likely will receive a much lower sentence. After conviction, the Judge revoked Odeh's bond since she was a flight risk. After a motion for reconsideration, the Judge this afternoon granted her $50,000 cash bond, finding she was not a likely flight risk, but did have problems with honesty. The full Order is below. The Order reads, in part:

.... Defendant stands convicted of a crime that will result in not only a certain sentence, but also certain removal from the United States upon completion of that sentence. At her trial, Douglas Pierce, Section Chief for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service in the Detroit office, testified that Defendant’s conviction in Israel, if it had been honestly disclosed, would have rendered her inadmissible for entry into the United States. Her conviction in Israel would have demonstrated a lack of good moral character that is required for eligibility to immigrate.

I already have demonstrated in great detail how the narrative being peddled by supporters of Rasmea Odeh is demonstrably false and distorted, Rasmea Odeh rightly convicted of Israeli supermarket bombing and U.S. immigration fraud. For those of you who are not familiar, Odeh was recently convicted of immigration fraud in Detroit federal court for failing to disclose on her visa and naturalization papers her conviction and imprisonment in Israel for planting a bomb in 1969 in a Jerusalem supermarket killing two students, and related offenses, including an attempted bombing of the British consulate. The immigration case was open and shut. The conviction and imprisonment were indisputable facts, and Odeh falsely answered "No" to clear questions asking if she had "EVER" (caps in original) been convicted or imprisoned. Instead of defending the claims, Odeh's defense team and supporters tried to turn the case into a verdict on the Middle East dispute. The Judge did not allow it. Once of the most egregious, yet typical, descriptions about the background of the case was published on November 22 in Truthout, by Dahr Jamail, Rasmea Odeh: Victim of Institutional Oppression, From Israel to the US. While most of the article is just conspiracy and oppression theories, the factual introduction is demonstrably inaccurate [my responses based on the documents in my prior post are bold and in brackets]:

On Monday, November 10, a jury rendered a verdict of guilty against Rasmieh (Rasmea) Odeh on charges that she unlawfully failed to disclose her conviction in Israel of involvement in the 1969 bombing of a supermarket and related offenses, and service of 10 years in Israeli prison (before being released in a prisoner exchange for an Israeli soldier held in Lebanon). Judge Gerschwin Drain ordered Odeh's bond revoked, and she was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs and taken into custody pending the March 15, 2015 sentencing. Odeh now has filed a motion for reconsideration of that decision. The motion and supporting exhibits, as well as an Affidavit, are embedded in full at the bottom of this post. The gist of the motion is that Odeh has strong ties to the Chicago area and limited (if any) ability to flee:

6. Among the findings made by the Court was that the Defendant did not have sufficient ties to the community, that her attempted escape from an Israeli prison in 1975 evidenced a lack of respect for authority, and that, now that she was convicted and facing possible prison time, she had no incentive to return to Court for sentencing.

The motion then goes on to list varies offers of proof rebutting the court's findings, including:

WAJ Note: This is a GUEST POST by the niece of Edward Joffe, who was killed in the supermarket bombing for which Rasmea Odeh was convicted and served 10 years in Israeli prison before being released in a prisoner exchange.  Odeh was convicted on Monday of immigration fraud for failing to disclose her conviction and imprisonment on her visa and naturalization applications.  You can follow our coverage of the case at the Rasmieh Odeh tag. --------------------- On Friday, February 21st 1969, my father’s brother, Edward Joffe, and his best friend, Leon Kanner, went to the supermarket Supersol at the intersection of Agron and Hamelech George in Jerusalem, to make some purchases for a botany department excursion in which they were to participate. As they approached the meat counter, an explosive device, a biscuit can filled with 5 Kgm of dynamite, which had been placed by Rasmieh Odeh and Ayesha Oudeh, was detonated and Eddie and Leon were both instantly killed. It is with much sadness, disappointment, and frustration that I write to you today. I spent last week attending the Immigration Fraud Trial in Detroit of Rasmieh Odeh. I sat in that courtroom with my father (alone in our row) surrounded by supporters of Odeh. We endured days of hateful looks and the rehashing of a traumatic event that changed my family forever. While I find a great sense of relief in knowing that a unanimous jury found her guilty in less than two hours, I still remain troubled by her numerous supporters. As I stated in my piece on Huffington Post, “That she has resurfaced after years of hiding her true person and now with hundreds of blind followers and supporters unaware (or worse, who don’t care) of what she did is sheer agony.

Rasmieh (Rasmea) Odeh was convicted on Monday by a jury in Detroit, after only 2 hours of deliberation, of unlawful procurement of naturalization. Odeh failed to reveal on her initial visa application and subsequent naturalization application that in 1969 she had been convicted of a terrorist bombing at a Super Sol supermarket, and served time in prison. Odeh served 10 years before being released by Israel as part of a prisoner release for a captured Israeli soldier in Lebanon. Her Israeli conviction was not just for the bombing. The pro-Rasmea propaganda campaign by anti-Israel Palestinian activists has been a textbook example of how anti-Israel propaganda works in the U.S. Odeh claims that her confession to involvement in the bombing was the result of her being sexually tortured in front of her father by Israeli soldiers, and even made to watch another prisoner being tortured to death. There is no way to verify or not her story. But there is evidence that Odeh was involved in the bombing apart from her confession. In this video, part of a pro-Palestinian Women in Struggle documentary, a woman identified as either her sister or "comrade"  talks about how Rasmea was involved in the bombing (watch the video here). National Review reports:

When Odeh was 21 years old, she was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Marxist-Leninist group and original member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which the U.S. has designated as a foreign terrorist organization, according to the indictment.

The trial in Detroit federal court of convicted Palestinian supermarket bomber Rasmieh (Rasmea) Odeh, for failing to disclose her conviction and prison time in Israel during the immigration and naturalization process, completed testimony Friday. As detailed before, the defense strategy has been jury nullification -- having the jury render a verdict based on the broader political dispute, while contesting the underlying conviction through claims by Odeh she was tortured into confessing. The Judge cut off the latter approach by ruling that allegations of torture were legally irrelevant since the legal issue was the non-disclosure to immigration officials, not whether the conviction was justified. In fact, there is evidence other than the confession of Odeh's involvement in the bombing, but to reopen the original conviction would have created a trial within a trial. The judge ordered that the defense could not mention the alleged torture. Nonetheless, according to a report from a supporter of Odeh, while testifying on cross-examination, Odeh volunteered to the jury that the was tortured. The Judge struck the testimony, but you can't unring the bell. Via the anti-Israel Electronic Intifada: