Bail to be revisited as attack planning is alleged
TAOS — Following a motion by state prosecutors alleging five defendants arrested at a remote compound in Northern New Mexico had planned to attack an Atlanta hospital, a District Court judge in Taos on Wednesday will reconsider a previous decision to grant the group release from jail on bond.
Judge Sarah Backus ruled Aug. 13 the District Attorney’s Office in Taos had failed to provide evidence showing the defendants in the high-profile child abuse case were a danger to the community and should be held until trial without bond. Her ruling drew fierce backlash.
On Friday, prosecutors filed a motion seeking reconsideration of Backus’ ruling and providing new details into allegations the two men and three women in the case — accused of abusing their 11 children by forcing them to live in squalid conditions at the makeshift dwelling — were training some children to carry out armed attacks.
One of their targets was Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, according to the motion. The hospital is the largest in Georgia and the primary emergent care facility for residents of Atlanta.
The motion alleges the site was
chosen because one of the defendants, Jany Leveille, was unhappy with treatment she and her mother had received at the facility. Leveille, a Haitian woman, was taken into federal custody by immigration officials after Backus’ Aug. 13 ruling. Prosecutors did not mention the hospital as possible target of an attack during the detention hearing.
They did say a foster parent caring for a child taken from the compound reported the child had spoken about being trained to carry out school shootings.
Prosecutors Tim Hasson and John Lovelace cited evidence they say supports allegations of planned attacks, including a guide on combat training, an “arsenal” of firearms found at the compound and testimony from an FBI agent, who said two of the children confirmed they had been trained to carry out shootings. None of the defendants is facing charges related to those allegations.
Friday’s motion also cites new interviews with children who had been living at the former compound in Amalia, near the Colorado border, which authorities recently razed.
According to the 13-page document, prosecutors said Leveille, 35, and four other adults who lived on the property — Lucas Morton, 40; Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, 40; and Wahhaj’s sisters Hujrah Wahhaj, 37, and Subhannah Wahhaj, 35 — had more than once expressed their intentions to die as martyrs “in jihad.”
They were arrested after an Aug. 3 law enforcement raid on the compound in search of a missing 3-year-old boy.
Siraj Ibn Wahhaj is accused of abducting the child, his son Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj, in December from the boy’s home in Clayton County, Ga. The boy’s remains later were found buried inside a 100-foot tunnel at the compound.
Siraj Ibn Wahhaj and Leveille, his wife, are accused of withholding the boy’s epilepsy medication and, as of last week, face new charges in the boy’s death.
The pair will appear Wednesday on the felony charges — a first-degree count of child abuse resulting in death and a seconddegree count of conspiracy to commit child abuse — in Chief District Judge Jeff McElroy’s courtroom in Taos, a news release says.
McElroy also will hear prosecutors’ motion to reconsider release of the five defendants, as well as defense attorneys’ motions to dismiss charges against Wahhaj and Leveille of child abuse not resulting in death or great bodily harm. Earlier Wednesday, District Judge Emilio Chavez will hear motions seeking dismissal of child abuse charges against the other three defendants in the case.
According to an electronic journal Leveille kept at the compound, court documents say, Abdul-Ghani died Dec. 24 during an Islamic prayer ritual the adults believed would dispel demons from the boy’s body.
In a motion, prosecutors say some journal entries suggest Leveille served as a kind of spiritual guide in the group’s plans to carry out attacks. She intended to convert “corrupt” individuals and institutions to her beliefs, investigators allege, with plans to target “the military, big businesses, CIA, teachers/schools.”
Documents say Leveille wrote in the journal that if they encountered resistance, the others were to attack with firearms when she gave a signal.
Prosecutors say another document recovered during a search of the compound was titled “Phases of a Terrorist Attack” and included instructions for “the one time terrorist.”
The motion also alleges Morton sent a letter to a brother of Wahhaj, asking him to join the group in New Mexico so he, too, could “die as a martyr.”
According to the motion, the letter requested the brother withdraw all of the money in his bank account and bring firearms to add to the group’s weapons stockpile.