Appellate court affirms Shabazz’s conviction
A state appeals court has upheld the conviction of Kingston community activist Ismail Shabazz in a 2015 weapons case.
Shabazz, who already has served his prison time, appealed his October 2016 conviction for attempted criminal sale of a weapon — a conviction that resulted from him pleading guilty. The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, Third Department, rejected the appeal on Thursday and also affirmed Shabazz’s two-year sentence.
Shabazz was arrested in June 2015 and charged with six counts of selling weapons to an FBI informant, nine counts of criminal possession of a weapon and one count of endangering the welfare of a child during the alleged sale of one illegal weapon. He could have faced up to 35 years in state prison if convicted of all 16 counts he faced.
Prosecutors ultimately allowed him to plead guilty to a single count of attempted criminal sale of a weapon. In entering his plea, Shabazz said he sold federal agents handguns, an assault rifle and a sawed-off shotgun, all in working condition, from his home on Prospect Street in Midtown Kingston.
He was sentenced on Feb. 1, 2017, to two years in state prison and was released on Jan. 3, 2019.
According to authorities, Shabazz became a person of interest in the federal investigation in 2013, when information was developed that he had recruited members of the Bloods street gang into the New Black Panthers Party in Kingston and was advocating violence against police officers.
Authorities said Shabazz sold weapons to agents of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force on four occasions between May 2014 and May 2015.
Shabazz said his arrest was a set-up by police in retaliation for his community activism, some of which opposed police actions.
Prior to his arrest, Shabazz served as chairman of the Kingston chapter of Black Panthers for Justice and president and vice president of the Ulster County Chapter of the NAACP. He has been a frequent critic of police and has participated in local demonstrations regarding attacks on black suspects by white officers in other cities.