Another delay for five compound defendants
Attorneys representing five adults arrested at a compound in the northern reaches of Taos County in August said they would need more time to review government documents connected to federal charges filed against their clients last week, delaying a detention hearing that was set to begin Wednesday morning (Sept. 5) in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque.
The defendants, Jany Leveille, 35; Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, 40; Hujrah Wahhaj, 37; Lucas Morton, 40; and Subhannah Wahhaj, 35, appeared before Judge Kirtan Khalsa Wednesday morning, who told the five their attorneys had filed for a continuance, delaying their release from custody as their cases are processed.
Leveille, a Haitian immigrant living in the United States without documentation, was charged by the FBI Friday (Aug. 31) with being “unlawfully in possession of firearms and ammunition” in New Mexico from November
2017 through August 2018, a felony, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
Her four co-defendants also face federal charges for aiding, abetting and conspiring with Leveille, who allegedly transported several firearms from Georgia to Northern New Mexico late last year in a vehicle occupied by at least two other defendants and several children.
All five adults were arrested on child abuse charges after law enforcement raided their makeshift residence near the Colorado border Aug. 3.
Eleven children found living at the compound were taken into protective custody. Three days later, the body of a twelfth child, identified as Siraj Ibn Wahhaj’s missing son, Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj, 3, was found buried in a
100-foot tunnel at the property. The FBI tracked the group to the compound and kept the property under aerial surveillance for an unknown period of time prior to the raid by local law enforcement, which acted on a tip that indicated the group may have been starving.
Morton, Subhannah Wahhaj and Hujrah Wahhaj were briefly released Aug. 29 after Taos District Court judges ruled that prosecutors had failed to hold preliminary hearings in time for the original child abuse cases, but were arrested hours later on the federal charges.
Leveille and Siraj Ibn Wahhaj have not been released since their arrests in early August on felony charges filed in connection to the child’s death.
Asked if they understood the delay implied by the motion to postpone Wednesday’s hearing, all five defendants answered, “Yes, judge,” sending the brief
court setting into a recess until next Wednesday (Sept. 12).
Speaking outside the courtroom, Morton’s attorney, Amy Sirignano, and Hujrah Wahhaj’s attorney, Carey Bhalla, said they and other attorneys needed more time to review federal documents filed in connection to the new charges.
“This is an unusual case,” Sirignano said, adding that she had flown into Albuquerque Tuesday evening (Sept. 4), leaving little time for her to prepare for the hearings.
Bhalla said that documents filed for the federal cases differ significantly from those filed through the 8th Judicial District Attorney’s Office in Taos last month on separate charges.
Both believe that it would be highly unusual for defendants to be held in jail on the charges currently filed.
They said that judges typically only hold defendants charged with violent crimes or who pose a significant risk of fleeing the country. This is a possibility that 8th Judicial District Attorney Donald Gallegos alluded to after the original child abuse charges were dropped in Taos County.
But next Wednesday’s hearing is expected to shed light on a federal investigation into what was happening at the compound where the defendants lived in Northern New Mexico.
While evidence has suggested the group might have been preparing to carry out attacks on government institutions, including schools, none of the cases filed against the five defendants have made it far enough to provide clear answers.