Suspect says he was ‘set up’ by FBI informant

Charges against a Palm Beach County man arrested in a terrorism sting last year should be thrown out because of “outrageous conduct” by the FBI and federal prosecutors, the defense team says.

Gregory Hubbard, 53, a former U.S. Marine and sculptor from West Palm Beach, has been locked up for a little more than a year on allegations that carry a maximum punishment of 20 years in prison. He has pleaded not guilty to charges he tried to help Islamic State terrorists and tried to go fight with them in Syria.

The defense team alleges Hubbard was “set up” by at least one informant who worked undercover for the FBI and that the prosecution team was “not only aware but complicit” in the informant’s “vendetta.” The informant came up with the entire plot which he “masterminded with the FBI,” the attorneys wrote.

Numerous paragraphs of the defense requests, which appear to contain details of allegations against an FBI informant, were blacked out in the 112 pages of court documents.

Though many of the details have been shielded from public view at the request of prosecutors, several sources told the Sun Sentinel that the informant in question is Mohammed Agbareia, 51, of Palm Beach County. Agbareia is a convicted fraudster who was arrested in June on new federal fraud charges.

Prosecutors have not yet filed a response to the defense allegations, which are expected to be discussed in court Wednesday. Hubbard’s trial is scheduled for later this year in federal court in West Palm Beach.

Prosecutors, the FBI and defense attorneys in the terrorism and fraud cases have all either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment. The prosecution asked judges to seal many of the proceedings in both cases, citing classified information linked to national security issues.

Agbareia was convicted of operating a “stranded traveler” fraud in 2006 for repeatedly tricking people into sending him money after claiming he lost his wallet or tickets. He pleaded guilty, got a break on his punishment and was released early from federal prison in late 2006 after serving about half of a twoyear term.

Prosecutors told a judge earlier this year that they believe Agbareia went back to committing fraud very soon after he was released from prison — and while he was providing undercover help to the FBI on the Hubbard case.

Agbareia, a Palestinian citizen from Israel who has no legal immigration status in the U.S., admitted to FBI agents on several occasions that he was still committing crimes and continued doing so “despite numerous warnings to cease,” prosecutors said in court in June.

The FBI called him a “national security asset” and praised his “usefulness as a provider of intelligence to the FBI” and work as an “informer” in court records filed in 2009.

The most recent criminal charges against Agbareia allege that he resumed his “stranded traveler” fraud in 2007 and continued it until the day before he was arrested on June 21, prosecutors told a judge after his arrest.

Two other local men, Darren Arness Jackson, 51, of Royal Palm Beach, and Dayne Antani Christian, 32, of Lake Park, pleaded guilty to a related conspiracy charge before the controversy erupted but have not yet been sentenced. It’s