The Patient Terrorist

Was American-born Hassan Abujihaad plotting to attack a San Diego military base? A federal judge is deciding that now.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
By Betsy Yagla

Hassan Abujihaad calmly listened to recorded phone conversations in federal court last week, in which he offered assistance in an ill-conceived plot to attack a San Diego military base and then snipe off soldiers trying to escape the attack.

Abujihaad, an American born Paul Hall, was arrested March 7 in Phoenix, and indicted March 21 in Bridgeport on charges of material support of terrorism and disclosing previously classified information. In 2001, while in the Navy, Abujihaad allegedly emailed classified information about ships' locations in the Middle East to Azzam Publications, a pro-jihad website hosted by a Connecticut company. This was months before 9/11. Abujihaad's email said the U.S.S. Benfold, a Navy destroyer, would pass through the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf on the night of April 21, 2001, when the ship would experience a communications blackout. During the blackout, Abujihaad wrote, "they have nothing to stop a small craft with RPG etc." In another email he praised the 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole, saying "psychological warfare [was] taking a toll."

In U.S. District Court in New Haven last week, government lawyers played dozens of recorded conversations between Abujihaad, his friend Derrick Shareef and an FBI informant, William "Jameel" Crisman.

Recorded conversations between the three are a curious mixture of American slang (dude, man, ol' boy) and Islamic phrases that were translated for the judge and court reporter. (After the first day of testimony, the court reporter asked: "Sounds like enchilada?" The answer: Insha' Allah, or God willing.)

Quirks aside, those conversations are alarming: They paint Abujihaad as a disgruntled Muslim American considering "defensive jihad." He laughs at the thought of killing American soldiers and admires an Iraqi sniper video. There's no real smoking gun in these conversations (although there is a semi-confession), but they reveal a paranoid would-be terrorist with a "consciousness of guilt." The government's lawyers are asking federal Judge Mark Kravitz to allow them to use these 2006 recordings in a jury trial about the 2001 email.

Evidence should keep the jury's eye on the ball, says Jeffrey Meyer, a former federal prosecutor and Quinnipiac University law professor. That means the prosecution can't introduce evidence unrelated to the offense, in this case the 2001 email of classified information. Kravitz will have to make a decision as to how far the prosecution can go: Do these taped conversations from 2006 illuminate Abujihaad's mind-set and motivations or do they unnecessarily make him look like a scary guy? These tapes could strike fear in the jury and Kravitz will decide whether or not the public will get to hear them again.

In 2006, the FBI asked their informant, Crisman—a white Muslim—to befriend Shareef. They met and Shareef moved into Crisman's Rockford, Ill., home. Right away Shareef began speaking against the government and alluding to jihad; Crisman began taping their conversations.

Shareef had an unstable childhood and moved to Phoenix in 2003 to be near his father. A recent and young convert to Islam, he was taken in by Abujihaad, who had been discharged from the Navy a year earlier. Abujihaad mentored the young Shareef: He helped Shareef get a GED, find a job and encouraged him to get his life in order. They also spoke about jihad.

In 2004, Shareef moved back to Illinois and fell out of touch with Abujihaad until 2006 when he wanted to revive their nebulous plan to attack a San Diego base.

Shareef, now 23, seemed eager and impatient; he wanted jihad now. Abujihaad—hesitant to participate in a hasty plan—repeatedly complained about Shareef's inexperience and his talkative nature. Those complaints give Abujihaad's attorneys a chance to question whether Shareef played up Abujihaad's importance in the terrorism underworld to make himself look more tough.

Abujihaad, 31, has two children; he's divorced and according to the FBI, he's threatened to kill his ex ["You wanna fuck with my life?...I'll fuckin' make sure you die. Believe that."]. Abujihaad is African American with very short hair and an equally short beard and mustache. Born Paul Hall, he legally changed his name to Abujihaad—literally, father of jihad.

In the recordings, amidst coded talk of jihad and buying illegal weapons, children are heard playing in the background. Abujihaad often cites his kids as one reason he needed to be cautious.

Soon after moving in, Shareef began telling the informant about his friend Abujihaad, his stint in the Navy and contacts with people connected to al Qaeda.

Abujihaad's lawyers would like the judge to believe these conversations show Shareef, repeatedly described as a "loose cannon," wanted to puff himself up. "[As an informant,] you're lying to Mr. Shareef and you don't know if he's lying to you, isn't that right?" defense attorney Robert Golger asked the informant. "You don't know if he's telling the truth or trying to impress you."

Shareef spoke as though he and Abujihaad were "really tight," Golger continued. "He led you to believe that he had this guy out in Phoenix and all he had to do [to carry out a terrorist attack] was call him." But the two had barely seen each other in two years.

The FBI recorded conversations in which Shareef repeatedly called Abujihaad to ask for assistance for the San Diego attack. Shareef had nothing to lose; he was in his prime, he said. It would be better to attack now while young and without responsibilities. But Abujihaad was trying to support a family and stay off the government's radar. After Shareef made a quick visit to Arizona to supposedly speak about their plans, he called Abujihaad to ask for planning help.
"Like I said, I'm suspect of the phone," responded Abujihaad, who continued the conversation in
code.

Abujihaad said he couldn't provide a "hot meal"—recent intelligence—because by 2006 he'd been out of the Navy for four years. But Abujihaad mentioned a friend who'd recently left the military who "can give himself a hot meal ... where he can eat a whole lot." Then Shareef and Abujihaad both laughed like giddy kids.

Shareef became frustrated and impatient with Abujihaad. Shareef hatched his own plan to attack a suburban Chicago mall in December of 2006, during the Christmas shopping season.
Abujihaad's lawyers claim Shareef's frustration proves Abujihaad wasn't serious about the San Diego attack (even though in recorded conversations Abujihaad asked for a left-handed AK 47 and said "patience" is a sniper's heaven). The informant claims Shareef said, "waiting for Hassan and them, I'll be waitin' 20 years for jihad."

For his mall plan, Shareef used the informant as a go-between to buy what he thought were illegal guns from an undercover officer. On Dec. 6, 2006 Shareef bought the guns and was arrested. (He pleaded guilty last week and could face life in prison.)

Two days later, the informant called Abujihaad to say Shareef had been arrested. Abujihaad immediately played dumb: "Look, I don't even know nothin'. I'll ditch your number or whatever." Then Abujihaad said, "This is what I'm gonna say...Look, he came at me with some bullshit, I told him to get outta my face."

The informant and Abujihaad worried that Shareef's big mouth would get them in trouble. "Why the hell he still runnin' around talkin' shit?" wondered the informant. "'Cuz he's stupid," replied Abujihaad. "Somebody just got paid off his dumb ass."

Listening to himself in court, Abujihaad seemed to realize how prescient that comment was. He smiled, leaned toward one of his attorneys and pointed at Jameel Crisman, the informant who was sitting across from him, on the witness stand. Crisman was the one who'd been paid. For the two-and-a-half months he'd informed on Shareef and Abujihaad, Crisman says he received $8,500.

Police and Politics

East Haven cops and politicos cross the thin blue line.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
By Betsy Yagla

If East Haven's new mayor, April Capone Almon, wanted to make things more uncomfortable for East Haven's police chief, she may have found a way.

Capone Almon has tapped local attorney Patricia Cofrancesco to serve as town counsel. Cofrancesco's representing disgruntled East Haven cops in at least two lawsuits against the department for what the suits characterize as poor decision-making on Police Chief Leonard Gallo's part.

Cofrancesco sued Gallo on behalf of Officer Bob Nappe, who was denied a year's leave of absence to train Iraqi police officers. Nappe resigned to go to Iraq and won his job back in court. Nappe was also vice president of the police union and didn't always see eye-to-eye with Gallo.

Cofrancesco's also representing 89-year-old Ralph Accurso, who got into a fender-bender with the wife of Maturo's town attorney, Larry Sgrignari. Gallo caught wind of the accident and, according to the lawsuit, ordered officers at the scene to arrest Accurso (the officers refused), even though Accurso was not at fault. Accurso's suing Gallo for interference.

Cofrancesco's appointment capped off a dramatic week in East Haven politics that culminated in Capone Almon being crowned mayor (again) after a third and final recount of ballots from Nov. 6. The intrigue appeared to deepen when Democratic Party boss Gene Ruocco discovered six trash bags full of shredded documents in a Town Hall basement and called in the cops to investigate. Cops hauled the bags off to the police station where Gallo moved them from the evidence room to the property room, limiting access to the bags.

Gallo asked New Haven State's Attorney Michael Dearington's office to investigate, but Dearington says there's not enough evidence to warrant an inquiry.

East Haven police were already the front and center in the close and contentious mayoral election: The police union endorsed and ran Capone Almon's campaign, following a vote of no confidence in Gallo in 2006. Gallo's been serving under an indefinite appointment by Maturo, but Capone Almon says things are going to change.

"I'd definitely like to make that a contract position," she says. "Things are going to be changing at the police department because we have to do something. The [police] department and officers know I have their best interest at heart. I want to see their work environment improved."
Get it? Gallo's gone as soon as Capone Almon's got a chance to kick him out. While cops dig up dirt on their boss to secure his dismissal, she's trying to make his job uncomfortable. Enter attorney Cofrancesco, who it seems will have to hand off the Nappe and Accurso cases now that she's town attorney. She can't sue herself.

Cofrancesco's last gig as a municipal attorney, as New Haven Mayor John DeStefano's corporation counsel, didn't end so well. DeStefano fired Cofrancesco for signing off on an illegal, interest-free lead-abatement loan to one of his City Hall aides. Cofrancesco, along with another dismissed city attorney, Martin Echter, has since become an aggressive litigator against the city.

A call to Confrancesco's East Haven law office went unreturned.

New Haven's Public Housing Vacancy Problem

Public housing apartments are breaking faster than New Haven can repair them.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
By Betsy Yagla

Motasha Leaks's home at Westville Manor is surrounded by vacant apartments. That's frustrating because Leaks, a mother of four, has been waiting for months to move into a different apartment in the same public housing complex.

Leaks, 31, can't get to her upstairs bedroom and bathroom since suffering from a stroke in September. A hospital bed takes up most of her living room. Plus, two of her four kids have disabilities: Her son needs a liver replacement and her daughter has bad asthma, but Housing Authority of New Haven (HANH) regulations won't allow an air conditioner in her one-window bedroom.

"She needs that air conditioner," says Leaks. Leaks needs a new apartment.

The Housing Authority wants to give her one, but can't offer one in Westville Manor. Leaks was offered a "tiny" apartment at Essex Townhouses on Quinnipiac Avenue, on the other side of town, but Leaks has come to depend on her neighbors in Westville, and doesn't want to leave. "If I can't get my kids to the school bus, my neighbors will. They all know me and they help me—they know I had a stroke," she says.

Of the 151 units there, at least 22 are boarded up. Citywide, there are 383 vacant HANH units awaiting repairs. Leaks lives between three boarded up units.

HANH's "vacancy team" is charged with turning over 20 units each month, says HANH chief operating officer Karen Dubois-Walton. In addition, units are put into the capital improvement plan—homes needing new kitchens, bathrooms or asbestos tiles removed—"when there's money appropriated for that project," says Dubois-Walton. "There's always more needs than funding available."

At Westville Manor, some units have been vacant for months; another has been empty for at least three years, say neighbors. That's not to say there's no activity there: Five units are being fixed up under HANH's partnership with a city program training HANH residents in the construction trade.

It's not moving fast enough for Leaks and her family. Also impatient is HANH watchdog Shelley White, a New Haven Legal Assistance Association lawyer who is pressuring HANH to build and buy more properties to house more families. "There's a financial cost to vacancies," says White.

She's talking about the $50,000 HANH is paying Vacant Property Systems for perforated steel window and door covers for vacant Westville Manor properties. Apartments not being fixed up are shuttered with plywood; those being repaired get the anti-burglary VPS covers. Westville Manor is the Housing Authority's only property using VPS covers meant to keep out vandals.

"It's partly because of how removed and remote the location is—Westville has much more vandalism into vacant properties," says Dubois-Walton. To illustrate her point, she adds: "One unit has become a poster child for this problem. Staff has turned over the unit six times. They go in, do all the work, put wooden boards up and within days folks have come in and damaged the unit."

Vacancies frustrate HANH, too. While HANH is paying and re-paying for units to be fixed, people like Leaks wait. New Haven has the distinction of having more subsidized housing units (about a third of all homes) than any city in the state, and its portfolio of housing projects, though far smaller than it once was, is still almost 2,000 units. But with so many units offline for redevelopment or repair, it's not uncommon to spend a year on a waiting list to get into a family development unit, says Dubois-Walton.

"There's a human cost [to vacancies]," says attorney White. "There are people who need to move in because they're under-housed or they need a more appropriate-sized unit and there are people on the waiting list."

Aside from units sitting vacant, HANH has taken hundreds of units "offline," transferring residents because their homes will eventually be torn down and rebuilt. Eastview Terrace, a 142-unit family development in Fair Haven Heights, was taken offline six years ago, displacing dozens of families. Last week, HANH broke ground for a new Eastview Terrace with plans to build and redo 127 units in addition to a meeting room, recreation space and learning center. The new Eastview is due to be done in 18 months, and should free up units for people on HANH's long waiting list. But that's come at a high cost too: The price of construction has more than tripled from $13 million in 2003 to $44 million.

Garbage Bail Kid

Ex-Lt. Billy White says he took bribes from bail bondsmen for a few months. The bondsmen say it was five years.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
By Betsy Yagla

Former New Haven Police Lt. Billy White claims he only began taking bribes to do part of his job—hunt down and arrest fugitives—in 2006, when the FBI and an undercover state police investigator began cracking White's web of corruption in the department's narcotics squad.

But the men who were bribing him say it began years earlier. Four years earlier, actually.
The Jacobs bail bonds family—father Robert and his two sons, Philip and Paul—pleaded guilty in federal court last week to paying illegal bribes to White and others (officers not necessarily employed by New Haven) since 2002.

That four-year discrepancy could mean thousands of dollars in restitution to the city. White's been asked to forfeit $10,200 he made from bribes taken during the eight months he was under investigation. Imagine the amount White pocketed during those earlier four years.

White's guilty plea—essentially an agreement between him and the government—stipulates he won't be charged with additional crimes by the FBI. But that doesn't preclude other government entities, like the city, from going after him for those four years. The city was paying White to do narcotics work, but White was spending a chunk of that time—city time—working for the Jacobses and himself instead.

Rob Smuts, the city's chief administrative officer, says the city can't look into those four years until the U.S. attorney's office gives them the nod. "After the U.S. attorney's office is done with their investigation, we'll certainly look into it," says Smuts.

Mayor John DeStefano's withholding judgment too. "We don't preclude any possibilities," says Jessica Mayorga, reading from a statement by DeStefano. "This case has just been adjudicated and his sentencing, including restitution and fines, has not yet been set."