Muslim groups raise eyebrow at jail sentence

Two national Muslim groups are questioning the sentence given to a Katy man who planned to launch an “American Insurgent Movement” by spraying a mosque with gunfire, as well as rob an armored car and kill a state trooper before heading to Washington to unleash more bloodshed.

Robert James Talbot recently was sentenced in Houston to just under seven years by U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein Jr. Prosecutors asked he get 20.

“It sends the message that the penalty will depend on who you target and who you are,” Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Monday.

“In this case, Muslims were targeted and the perpetrator was not Muslim,” said Hooper, whose group is a Washington, D.C.-based civil rights and advocacy organization. “If it would have been reversed, the outcome would have been much different.”

Talbot’s lawyer, Winifred Akins Pastorini, said Talbot had mental health issues, apologized for his actions and was trying to get better.

Talbot, 39, didn’t conspire with an army of supporters but with undercover government agents who got close to him to make a case, she said.

“I was so impressed with Judge Werlein’s compassion for someone who is showing he was not himself when this happened; and nobody was injured; and he is doing everything in his power to get help,” she said.

“Here is a man who said, ‘I was not in my right mind. There were issues I didn’t even know I had that caused me to think crazy thoughts.’”

Rabiah Ahmed, spokeswoman for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, commended law enforcement for preventing an attack, but also questioned the outcome.

“Terrorism is terrorism — regardless of where it happens and who commits it — it should be responded to by equal measure across the board,” said Ahmed, whose group has staff in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles.

When Talbot was arrested in 2014 by a Houston-based Joint Terrorism Task Force, he allegedly wanted to attack a mosque during a prayer session when it would be most crowded.

As the FBI monitored Talbot, it quietly inserted undercover agents and civilian informants into his life.

One posed as an oil platform worker who could get explosives and another pretended to have contacts in another militia movement.

Talbot allegedly spelled out his plans, which included sending “that White House worthless piece of dirt and his Muslim brotherhood a message they will never forget,” according to an affidavit used to file charges against him.

Talbot is accused of telling the undercover agents he needed to rob banks and armored cars for funds to buy bigger weapons.

There was also a personal score to settle for Talbot, who said he wanted to kill a Texas state trooper who arrested him in January for driving under the influence, and set a trap for more officers.

Hooper, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the sentence wasn’t suitable given the allegations.

“It seems the prosecutors were doing their job and the FBI was doing its job,” he said. “You’d have to ask the judge why he felt six and a half years was an appropriate sentence for someone plotting a massacre.”