New Judge Assigned to 9/11 Case Ahead of 24th Anniversary of Attacks
Lt. Col. Michael Schrama is the fifth judge in the case against five men who are accused of conspiring in the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. The case has been stuck in pretrial hearings since 2012.
Prosecutors made a deal last summer with three of the defendants, including the man accused of being the mastermind of the plot, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, to plead guilty in exchange for life sentences. That would have averted their death-penalty trial.But the agreement has been revoked twice, including this month by an appeals court in Washington, potentially returning the case to the question of whether the defendants' torture from 2002 to 2006 while they were in C.I.A. detention has rendered their confessions inadmissible.
Colonel Schrama was assigned to the case on Wednesday. Prosecutors have indicated that they would like to see him on the bench the week of Sept. 1 for an examination of his qualifications.
If no disqualifying conflicts emerge, it will be Colonel Schrama's job to manage the pretrial proceedings at a time when the case has splintered into three parts.
Mr. Mohammed and two other defendants who had the plea deal are in one camp. The previous judge, Col. Matthew N. McCall, had ruled that their pretrial agreements were valid contracts before he retired in May. Their lawyers are preparing an appeal to seek the deals' reinstatement, and have shunned any case-moving litigation at the Guantánamo court as a potential breach of the contract.
Another defendant, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, was found mentally incompetent to go to trial and his case was severed. Prosecutors have asked the court to revisit that question.The fifth defendant, Ammar al Baluchi, was litigating on a separate track. The last judge wrapped up his four years on the case by suppressing Mr. Baluchi's interrogations by the F.B.I. at Guantánamo in 2007 as having been obtained through his C.I.A. torture. Prosecutors are seeking to reinstate his confessions.
Colonel Schrama, who is in his 40s, graduated from Roger Williams University School of Law in 2008, around the time the defendants were first brought to court. He then joined in the Air Force and has served as a military prosecutor and defense counsel on appeal cases.
This is his second stint as a military judge. He handled court-martial cases at Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia from 2021 to 2023, and returned to the bench last month.
Colonel Schrama was an English student at Georgetown University and a starting defensive end on the school's football team at the time of the attacks. Before he went to law school, he taught high school English in New York.His online personal and professional biography said he suffered a 'season-ending injury' in his third year at Georgetown.
According to his Air Force biography, he has specialized in environmental law while serving in the military. He also earned a Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, possibly from a nine-month stint as the staff attorney for an air wing in Kuwait in 2019.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
34 minutes ago
- New York Post
Head of US Secret Service NYC field office calls it a career: ‘An incredible honor to serve'
Patrick Freaney was shot down when he first tried to join the US Secret Service — but the 9/11 survivor, former state trooper and native New Yorker isn't one to quit on a dream. Freaney, 48, gave it another shot and went on to a decorated 25-year career with the elite federal agency, guarding US presidents, UN dignitaries and rising to the top spot in the Big Apple field office. This week, he's calling it a career. 5 Patrick Freaney, 48, began his career as a state trooper and finished up as head of the Secret Service in New York. Matthew McDermott 'I always felt a strong connection to New York, even from my early days in the service,' he told The Post. 'To conclude my career here as the Special Agent in Charge will always be a source of personal pride. It's been an honor and a privilege to lead this amazing group of dedicated professionals.' Raised in Long Beach, Freaney was the son of an FDNY captain and a New York City school teacher, and went on to attend Siena College, where he was a standout lacrosse player. But he dreamed of a career in law enforcement, inspired by his FBI agent grandfather, and joined the state police department in 1998, serving in Farmingdale, Brewster and Wappingers Falls. Seeking to join the Secret Service, at first he was rejected. 5 Raised in New York, Patrick Feaney wanted to follow his FBI agent grandfather into law enforcement — and did. Matthew McDermott 'It was humbling, but it was also a really good lesson early in life that things will not always go your way,' Freaney said. 'It also taught me about resolve and it obviously worked out when I re-applied.' This time, he got in, and joined the service on July 21, 2000, starting in the New York Field Office. On Sept. 11, 2001, he survived the collapse of 7 World Trade Center during the terror attacks, and joined first-responders in follow-up evacuation and recovery efforts. His career then took off, joining the Counter Assault Team in the Special Operations Division in 2005 and moving to the Presidential Protection Division in 2008, where he was part of the unit protecting former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. 'People always know the service for its role in protection, but we also have an investigative mission where we focus on financial crimes that significantly impact the public and our financial system.' 5 Patrick Freaney's Secret Service career included protecting dignitaries at the United Nations General Assembly. 5 Patrick Freaney was part of the security details protecting former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. AP In June 2012 he returned home as assistant to the special agent in charge in the New York office, and in March 2016 was promoted to resident special agent in charge of the White Plains office. Two more promotions quickly followed, to assistant special agent in charge of the Electronic Crimes Task Force in 2018, deputy special agent in charge the following year, and, finally, to special agent in charge of the New York office in June 2021. Among his duties was protecting the United Nations General Assembly — a massive job that requires protecting at least 130 foreign dignitaries when they converge on Manhattan. 'You can never get risk to zero,' he said. 'There's always risk. It's our job to mitigate it. In a global threat environment, we need to be aware of the issues and take everything into consideration.' 5 Following a 25-year career with the Secret Service, Patrick Freaney will be head of security for Bank of New York. Matthew McDermott Now, after fulfilling every task his country asked him for, he's retiring on Thursday. 'I want to thank him for everything he has done for the NYPD, for New York City, for the country, and beyond,' said Rebecca Weiner, Deputy Commissioner, Intelligence and Counterterrorism for the NYPD. 'Pat is the best of the best. 'He navigates the stormiest waters with unflappable competence, treats colleagues as family, and approaches his job with consummate professionalism,' Weiner said. 'We will miss Pat, and we wish him all the best in his future endeavors.' That endeavor will be head of global security for the Bank of New York Mellon.
Boston Globe
a day ago
- Boston Globe
Competing conspiracy theories consume Trump's Washington
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The harmonic convergence of competing conspiracies has overshadowed critical policy issues facing America's leaders at the moment, whether it's new tariffs that could dramatically reshape the global economy or the collapse of cease-fire talks meant to end the war in the Gaza Strip. The Epstein matter so spooked Speaker Mike Johnson that he abruptly recessed the House for the summer rather than confront it. The allegations lodged against Obama so outraged the former president that he emerged from political hibernation to express his indignation at even having to address them. Advertisement The whispers and questions -- 'this nonsense,' as Trump put it -- followed the president all the way to Scotland, where he landed Friday for a visit to his golf club. Advertisement 'You're making a very big thing over something that's not a big thing,' he complained to reporters, suggesting, in his latest bid at conspiracy deflection, that instead of him, the news media should be looking at Epstein's other boldface friends like former president Clinton. 'Don't talk about Trump,' he said. Conspiracy theories have a long place in American history. Many Americans still believe that the moon landings were faked, that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an inside job, or that the government is hiding proof of extraterrestrial visitors in Roswell, New Mexico. Sixty-five percent of Americans told Gallup pollsters in 2023 that they think there was a conspiracy behind the assassination of President Kennedy. Some conspiracy theories do turn out to be true, of course, or have some basis. But presidents generally have not been the ones spreading dubious stories. To the contrary, they traditionally have viewed their role as dispelling doubts and reinforcing faith in institutions. President Lyndon B. Johnson created the Warren Commission to investigate his predecessor's murder specifically to keep rumors and guesswork from proliferating. (Spoiler alert: It didn't.) Trump, by contrast, relishes conspiracy theories, particularly those that benefit him or smear his enemies without any evident care for whether they are true or not. 'There have been other conspiratorial political movements in the country's past,' said Geoff Dancy, a University of Toronto professor who teaches about conspiracy theories. 'But they have never occupied the upper echelons of power until the last decade.' Advertisement During the 2016 Republican primaries, Trump tied the father of one of his rivals, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, to the Kennedy killing, citing a photograph with Lee Harvey Oswald. During Trump's hush money trial in New York last year, his onetime compatriot David Pecker of The National Enquirer acknowledged under oath that the whole thing was made up to damage Cruz and elect Trump. Unrepentant, Trump stuck to his false assertions about Obama's birthplace for years, only grudgingly admitting late in the 2016 campaign that his predecessor was in fact born in the United States. 'The president's repeated discussion of multiple conspiracy theories, most recently about the 2016 election, has no parallel in American politics,' said Meena Bose, director of the Peter S. Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency at Hofstra University. Conspiracy theories are not the exclusive preserve of Trump and the political right. Around the time of last month's anniversary of the assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pa., some on the left once again advanced the notion that the whole shooting episode had been staged to make the Republican candidate into a political martyr. Some Democrats have now dived into the Epstein fever swamp head-first, suddenly exercised by a closed case that had hardly been on the party's priority list just weeks ago as they pile on Trump and maximize his political troubles. After Roy Black, who was Epstein's defense lawyer, happened to die at age 80 this past week at the height of the furor over the case, some on the left saw suspicious timing. Advertisement Trump, however, has stirred the plot pot more than any other major political figure. In the six months since retaking office, he has remained remarkably cavalier about suggesting nefarious schemes even as he heads the government supposedly orchestrating some of them. He suggested the nation's gold reserves at Fort Knox might be missing, resurrecting a decades-old fringe supposition, even though he would presumably be in position to know whether that was actually true, what with being president and all. 'If the gold isn't there, we're going to be very upset,' he told reporters. It fell to Scott Bessent, the decidedly nonconspiratorial Treasury secretary, to burst the bubble and reassure Americans that, no, the nation's reserves had not been stolen. 'All the gold is present and accounted for,' he told an interviewer. Trump has played to long-standing suspicions by ordering the release of hundreds of thousands of pages of documents related to the assassinations of Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., an act of transparency for historians and researchers that may shed important light on those episodes. But Trump has gone beyond simple theory floating to make his own alternate reality official government policy. Some applicants for jobs in the second Trump administration were asked whether Trump won the 2020 election that he actually lost; those who gave the wrong answer were not helping their job prospects, forcing those rooted in facts to decide whether to swallow the fabrication to gain employment. The past week or so has seen a fusillade of Trumpian conspiracy theories, seemingly meant to focus attention away from the Epstein case. Tulsi Gabbard, the president's politically appointed intelligence chief, trotted out inflammatory allegations that Obama orchestrated a 'yearslong coup and treasonous conspiracy' by skewing the 2016 election interference investigation -- despite the conclusions of a Republican-led Senate report signed by none other than Marco Rubio, now Trump's secretary of state. She also claimed that Hillary Clinton was 'on a daily regimen of heavy tranquilizers' during the 2016 campaign. Advertisement Relying on this, Trump accused Obama of 'treason,' suggesting he should be locked up and going so far as to post a fake video showing his predecessor being handcuffed in the Oval Office and put behind bars. The idea of a president posting such an image of another president would once have been seen as a shocking breach of etiquette and corruption of the justice system, but in the Trump era it has become simply business as usual. For all that, the conspiracy theorist in chief has not been able to shake the Epstein case, which reflects the rise of the QAnon movement that believes America is run by a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles. Most of the files, the ones that his attorney general told him include his name, remain unreleased, bringing together an unlikely alliance of MAGA conservatives and liberal Democrats. It was well known that Trump was friends with Epstein, although they later fell out. So it's not clear what his name being in the files might actually mean. But Trump is not one to back down. Asked last week about whether he had been told his name was in the files, Trump again pointed the finger of conspiracy elsewhere. 'These files were made up by Comey,' he told reporters, referring to James Comey, the FBI director he had fired more than two years before Epstein died in prison in 2019. 'They were made up by Obama,' he went on. 'They were made up by the Biden administration.' Advertisement The theories are endless. This article originally appeared in
Epoch Times
a day ago
- Epoch Times
US Sanctions Maduro-Linked Venezuelan ‘Cartel of the Suns' as Terrorist Entity
The Treasury Department on Friday designated Venezuela's Cartel de los Soles—known in English as the Cartel of the Suns—as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) entity, accusing President Nicolas Maduro and senior members of his regime of leading the group and supporting major drug cartels whose activities threaten U.S. national security. The designation, issued by the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on July 25 under counterterrorism authorities, blocks all property and interests of the group within U.S. jurisdiction, and generally prohibits Americans from engaging in transactions with it.
