Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Pulse shooter’s wife acquitted of all charges
Al Salman stood outside a California federal courthouse a year ago and tried to convince the public his niece, Noor Salman, did not help plot the Pulse massacre and deceive investigators.
Friday, he faced reporters again, this time outside an Orlando federal courthouse to rejoice in a jury’s not-guilty verdict. “I said, Day One, that she’s innocent and I would stand here in front of you when the jury comes with the verdict to tell you, ‘I told you so.’
“Now,” he said, “I came here to tell you: ‘I told you so.’ ”
The 12-member jury delivered its verdict after deliberating for about 12 hours over three days. Noor Salman was acquitted of
obstruction of justice and of aiding and abetting her husband, Omar Mateen, in providing material support to a foreign terror organization, the Islamic State group.
Had she been convicted, Salman, 31, would have faced up to life in prison.
Inside the courtroom, she gasped as the first “not guilty” was read aloud. She muffled sobs. She looked back at her cousin and two uncles, who were crying and hugging.
About 10 victims’ families and survivors sat on the other side of the courtroom, silent and stoic. They left the courthouse together, holding hands as they walked across the street to the parking lot and hugged before going separate ways.
Mateen killed 49 people and injured dozens of others in what was at the time the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Salman was questioned and released the same day. Seven months later, agents arrested her at her family’s home in California. She had been in custody since then.
Outside the federal courthouse Friday, defense lawyer Fritz Scheller commended victims’ families and survivors with whom he spoke during the trial. He said they showed dignity, compassion and understanding.
“Even after the verdict, we interacted. We embraced,” Scheller said. “I know it’s been a difficult process for them, but I have a great deal of admiration for the parents of the victims and the victims that were in the courtroom today.”
Salman’s family expressed sorrow and sympathy for the victims’ families and thanked defense lawyers and jurors.
Within hours, Salman walked out of the Orange County Jail hand-in-hand with Scheller.
In a statement to news outlets released later in the day, the jury’s foreman said the verdict “did NOT mean that we thought Noor Salman was unaware of what Omar Mateen was planning to do. On the contrary we were convinced she did know. She may not have known what day, or what location, but she knew.”
However, he said the prosecution had failed to meet its burden of proof.
“The bottom line is that, based on the letter of the law, and the detailed instructions provided by the court, we were presented with no option but to return a verdict of not guilty,” he said.
Prosecutors in the case spoke only briefly after the verdict. “While we’re disappointed in the jury’s verdict, we respect their verdict and we appreciate all of their hard work and thank them for their service in this case,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Sweeney said.
Throughout the trial, Salman was described in vastly divergent ways by the government and defense. To prosecutors, she was a willing accomplice who gave her husband a “green light” to carry out the attack. To the defense, she was a simple-minded person, susceptible to manipulation.
The prosecution sought to prove Salman helped Mateen prepare for the attack, joining him as he scouted possible targets and bought guns and ammunition. They also said Salman concocted a cover story to tell Mateen’s mother after he left their Fort Pierce apartment to commit the attacks.
Salman’s defense, however, said there was no reason for Mateen to involve his wife in his plot — and no proof he had done so. Instead, they said Mateen lived a secret life. They called to the witness stand women who described brief flings with Mateen.
“Why would Omar Mateen confide in Noor, a woman he clearly had no respect for?” defense attorney Linda Moreno said during her closing arguments. “She was not his peer, she was not his partner, and she was not his confidant.”
Central to the case were statements Salman made to Special Agent Ricardo Enriquez at an FBI office in the hours after the attack. The jury never heard those statements directly, as the agent didn’t record them. Instead, he transcribed her words — at her request, he said, because she was too nervous.
Enriquez testified about the moment he said he realized Salman was involved in her husband’s plot. After transcribing a statement from her, he asked her to sign the document and write that she had been treated fairly. She appended an apology: “I am sorry for what happened,” she wrote. “I wish I’d go back and tell his family and the police what he was going to do.”
“I said, ‘You know, Noor, I realize that you knew what was going on. You knew,’ ” Enriquez testified.
She denied it, so he asked her to re-read the statement.
“She began to cry, and said, ‘I knew,’ ” Enriquez said.
Enriquez said Salman ultimately confessed she knew her husband was preparing for an attack. She also described a chilling scene: sitting alongside him as he drove around Pulse for 20 minutes during a family trip on June 8, 2016, and talked about attacking the club. But there was a problem. According to experts for both sides, the trip didn’t occur as described in Enriquez’s written statements.
FBI Special Agent Richard Fennern testified that most of the couple’s time that day was accounted for with receipts and cellphone records. They visited the Florida Mall, a falafel restaurant and a Kissimmee mosque, Fennern said, but Salman’s phone “had never been near the Pulse nightclub.”
The jury’s foreman said he wished the FBI agents had recorded her statements.
Salman’s family said she’ll be returning to her mother’s home in California, where her 5-year-old son is being raised by family.