What We Should See on CourtTV
While it lacks the sort of car wreck appeal of the Simpson trial or the latest infanticide prosecution, the trial of a former federal prosecutor accused of excessive zealousness in his attempt to convict four alleged terrorist conspirators will be one to watch:
WASHINGTON, March 29 - A grand jury charged Wednesday that a former federal prosecutor in Detroit who led one of the Justice Department’s biggest terrorism investigations concealed critical evidence in an effort to bolster the government’s theory that a group of local Muslim men were plotting an attack.
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Mr. Convertino, once a rising star at the Justice Department who fell out of favor with supervisors in Washington, denied that he had ever withheld evidence, and he pledged that he would be vindicated.
“These charges are clearly vindictive and retaliatory, and it’s an effort to discredit and smear someone who tried to expose the government’s mismanagement of the war on terrorism,” he said in a telephone interview.
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Two of the men were convicted on terrorism charges after a high-profile trial in 2003, with Mr. Convertino as the lead prosecutor. But the case soon began to unravel amid accusations of concealed evidence and government misconduct. The Justice Department ultimately repudiated its own case, leading to the dismissal of all terrorism charges against the men in 2004.
In light of the Moussaoui trial’s revelations of governmental failures to act on pre-9/11 intelligence, I’m interested to learn what Convertino has to say.
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