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Victims’ father charges at ex-U.S.A. Gymnastics doctor in court

Randall Margraves (L) lunges at Larry Nassar,(wearing orange) a former team USA Gymnastics doctor who pleaded guilty in November 2017 to sexual assault charges, during victim statements of his sentencing in the Eaton County Circuit Court in Charlotte, Michigan, U.S., February 2, 2018.

(Editor’s Note: Please be advised that this story contains language in fifth paragraph that may offend some readers)

By Steve Friess

(Reuters) – The enraged father of three daughters sexually abused by Larry Nassar charged toward the former USA Gymnastics national team doctor and tried to attack him during a sentencing hearing in a Michigan courtroom on Friday.

He was nearly within striking distance of Nassar before court guards tackled him roughly to the ground in front of his shocked daughters.

The chaotic scene began after sisters Lauren and Madison Margraves had finished tearfully reading their victim statements on the second day of hearings at a court in Eaton County, much as nearly 200 women have done before them at earlier hearings. Standing alongside his daughters and wife, Randall Margraves, a tall man with an intense gaze dressed in an electricians’ union sweatshirt, then asked to speak.

“I would ask you as part of the sentencing to grant me five minutes in a locked room with this demon,” he said to the judge, gesturing toward Nassar, who has already been sentenced to up to 175 years in prison at an earlier hearing after pleading guilty to molesting young women under the guise of medical treatment.

Judge Janice Cunningham told him he knew she could not do that, and chastised him after he called Nassar a son of a bitch. He asked for one minute alone instead. The judge demurred as some in the courtroom laughed uncomfortably.

Margraves then bolted toward Nassar, seated in an orange jump suit behind a nearby table. His daughters’ hands flew to their mouths, and one of Nassar’s lawyers moved to shield his client.

Gasps, cries and shouts filled the courtroom as Margraves was wrestled to the ground, knocking things off a desk on the way down, and put in handcuffs while Nassar was taken out to safety.

“One minute!” he demanded repeatedly, his head pinned to the floor. As court officers pulled him from the room, he implored them, “What if this happened to you guys?” Some victims fled the room in tears.

Looking distressed, the lead prosecutor, Angela Povilaitis, turned to the victims and relatives in the courtroom and tried to restore calm, saying she did not want to see anyone else end up in handcuffs.

“I understand Mr. Margraves’ frustration but you cannot do this,” she said. “This is not helping your children.”

The hearing resumed after a short break, with the judge addressing what she called a “scary” scene.

“My heart started beating fast and my legs started shaking,” Cunningham said. “We cannot react by using physical violence,” she told the courtroom, noting she could not imagine Margraves’ pain as a father. Nassar was back in his seat, looking downcast.

The hearing then reverted to the ritual established at earlier sessions: woman after woman rising to confront Nassar with accounts of a revered doctor they trusted making them strip naked and penetrating them with ungloved hands, and affirmations that they are no longer victims but survivors.

Margraves was being held in a cell at the courthouse, according to a corrections officer, but it was not immediately clear whether he would face any charges.

People reacted on social media with empathy for Margraves, with some offering to help cover any legal costs he faces.

Views were more mixed at the courthouse.

“If he had gotten some licks in, I wouldn’t have cried over it,” Lavonda Simon, whose daughter was among Nassar’s victims, said. “I totally understand the feeling of wanting to hurt him. You bet.”

Mariah McClain, who testified about Nassar’s abuse of her after the break, said she had to leave when Margraves erupted.

“It was very upsetting,” she said. “It was just too much for me.”

Nassar, who is also serving a 60-year federal term for child pornography convictions, has sparked broader outrage after numerous victims accused USA Gymnastics, the sport’s governing body, and Michigan State University, where Nassar worked, of failing to investigate complaints about him going back years.

U.S. Olympic officials have also been criticized by some of the sport’s biggest stars, including gold medalists Aly Raisman, Simone Biles and McKayla Maroney. Multiple investigations, including at least two by members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, are ongoing into how Nassar was able to abuse women for so long.

(Reporting by Steve Friess; Additional reporting by Bernie Woodall; Writing by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Andrew Hay)

Pro-Kurdish opposition leader goes on trial in Turkey on terrorism-related charges

By Ece Toksabay

ANKARA (Reuters) – The jailed leader of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish opposition went on trial on Thursday, 13 months after his arrest on terrorism-related charges, facing up to 142 years in prison in a case closely watched by rights groups and Western governments.

Selahattin Demirtas, the co-leader of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), was not allowed to appear in court for security reasons and refused to take part via video link. A state prosecutor demanded he remain in jail during the trial.

A former human rights lawyer, Demirtas was arrested on Nov. 4 last year, one of more than a dozen HDP lawmakers who were arrested in a crackdown following last year’s attempted coup.

A crowd of several hundred gathered to show support for Demirtas in snowy weather outside the court near the capital Ankara. They joined hands and danced around small fires, singing songs in Kurdish. “Demirtas is our honor,” they chanted.

Demirtas and other detained HDP members are mostly accused of links to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, which has conducted a decades-old insurgency in which 40,000 people have been killed. The group is deemed a terrorist organization by the United States, Turkey and Europe. All of the accused deny the charges.

The HDP is the third-largest party in Turkey’s parliament. The party’s other co-leader, Figen Yuksekdag, also jailed pending trial on terrorism charges, was remanded in custody by an Ankara court on Wednesday.

PROTESTS BANNED

Demirtas is held in a jail in the northwestern city of Edirne. The case was to be held within the city of Ankara itself but was moved to the Sincan prison complex outside the capital, two days before the trial, because of security concerns.

European parliamentarians, Western diplomats and rights group representatives attended the session in the small court room with a capacity of 120 people. The HDP said 1,250 lawyers sought to defend Demirtas.

The HDP said in a statement the indictment largely consists of press releases and speeches Demirtas has made at conferences, panels and similar legal and political activities.

The charges aimed at Demirtas included “establishing a terrorist organization”, “spreading terror group propaganda” and “praising crimes and criminals”.

Authorities banned protests across Ankara province for the three days until Friday for security reasons after the HDP called for protests to mark the hearing of Demirtas and other party officials, the governor’s office said in a statement.

About 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended and roughly 50,000 people have been jailed pending trial since last year’s failed coup. Rights groups and some Western allies say Erdogan has used the putsch as an excuse to quash dissent. The HDP says as many as 5,000 of its members have been detained.

Erdogan says such measures were necessary given the danger represented by the putsch in which 250 people were killed.

(Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by David Dolan and Andrew Heavens)

U.S. prosecutors seek arrest of illegal immigrant acquitted of Kate Steinle murder

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – U.S. prosecutors on Friday sought to arrest an illegal immigrant acquitted of murdering a San Francisco woman in a case raised during the 2016 presidential campaign, saying his conviction on a lesser weapons charge violated the terms of his supervised release.

A San Francisco Superior Court jury on Thursday found Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, 45, not guilty of murder and manslaughter charges in connection with the July 1, 2015, death of Kate Steinle. Jurors found him guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

President Donald Trump, who had used the Steinle case as a rallying cry against the pro-immigration policies of so-called sanctuary cities during his successful run for the presidency, called the verdict “disgraceful” on Twitter.

Sanctuary cities such as San Francisco limit their cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

Before the shooting, Garcia Zarate, who had been deported to Mexico five times, had been released from a San Francisco jail despite a request by immigration authorities that he be detained and turned over to them.

In seeking an arrest warrant on Friday, federal prosecutors said that Garcia Zarate’s conviction on the weapons charge violated the conditions of his supervised release from federal custody in March 2015 after nearly four years in prison, just months before Steinle’s killing.

The arrest warrant was dated 2015, but was amended and unsealed following the verdicts.

Garcia Zarate also faces sentencing in San Francisco Superior Court on the weapons charge, and it was not clear which jurisdiction would take the lead.

The jurors who acquitted Garcia Zarate, who previously was known as Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez, did not speak to reporters following their verdict.

They apparently agreed with defense attorneys who said during the trial that Garcia Zarate found the gun and it accidentally discharged, with the bullet ricocheting off the ground at a pier frequented by tourists before striking Steinle.

Prosecutors had argued Garcia Zarate intentionally fired the gun.

In June, the U.S. House of Representatives passed “Kate’s Law,” which would increase penalties for illegal immigrants who return to the United States. The bill has not passed the U.S. Senate.

Since taking office as president in January, Trump and his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, have sought to cut federal funding for sanctuary cities but have suffered setbacks in court.

In a statement after the verdict, Sessions said San Francisco officials’ “decision to protect criminal aliens led to the preventable and heartbreaking death of Kate Steinle.”

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Turkey’s Erdogan says U.S. courts cannot put Turkey on trial

By Tuvan Gumrukcu

ANKARA (Reuters) – Courts in the United States cannot put Turkey on trial, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday, in reference to the case of a Turkish bank executive who has been charged with evading U.S. sanctions on Iran.

Already strained ties between NATO allies Ankara and Washington have deteriorated in recent weeks as Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab, who is cooperating with U.S. prosecutors, detailed in court a scheme to evade U.S. sanctions.

Over three days of testimony, Zarrab has implicated top Turkish politicians, including Erdogan. Zarrab said on Thursday that Erdogan personally authorized two Turkish banks to join the scheme when he was prime minister.

Ankara has cast the testimony as an attempt to undermine Turkey and its economy, and has previously said it was a “clear plot” by the network of U.S.-based Fethullah Gulen, who it alleges engineered last year’s coup attempt.

Reuters was not immediately able to reach representatives for the ministers implicated by Zarrab in the trial.

Turkey has repeatedly requested Gulen’s extradition, but U.S. officials have said the courts require sufficient evidence before they can extradite the elderly cleric, who has denied any involvement in the coup.

Erdogan, who has governed Turkey for almost 15 years, told members of his ruling AK Party in the northeastern province of Kars on Saturday that U.S. courts “can never try my country”.

Although he has not yet responded to the courtroom claims, he has dismissed the case as a politically motivated attempt to bring down the Turkish government and on Friday the state-run Anadolu news agency said Turkish prosecutors are set to seize the assets of Zarrab and his acquaintances.

Turkey has stepped up its pressure on the U.S. and on Saturday Anadolu quoted Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu as saying that Gulen’s followers had infiltrated the U.S. judiciary, Congress, and other state institutions.

The United States says its judiciary is independent of any political or other interference.

CRACKDOWN

Some 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from their jobs over alleged links to Gulen since the attempted coup, while close to 50,000 people from the military, public and private sector have been jailed.

And in a further blow to Turkish-U.S. ties, Turkish authorities on Friday issued an arrest warrant for former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer Graham Fuller over suspected links to the abortive putsch.

Rights groups and Turkey’s Western allies have voiced concerns that Erdogan is using the crackdown to muzzle dissent, but the government says the purges are necessary due to the gravity of the threat it faces.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Alexander Smith)

Lawsuit seeks to block Illinois abortion coverage expansion

By Chris Kenning

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Abortion opponents in Illinois filed a lawsuit on Thursday to block a recently approved law expanding state-funded coverage of abortions for low-income Medicaid recipients and state workers.

The lawsuit was filed in Sangamon County Circuit Court on behalf of taxpayers by the conservative Thomas More Society, along with some state lawmakers and anti-abortion groups.

It asked a judge to block state funding for the law, arguing that the state failed to set aside up to $30 million in the budget to pay for abortions. The lawsuit also argued that the law could not take effect until June 2018, instead of January, because of when it was approved.

“The people of Illinois are opposed to taxpayer funded abortion, especially with the terrible financial state that Illinois is in,” Peter Breen, a Republican state lawmaker and an attorney for the Thomas More Society, said on Thursday.

He argued that the state would have to pay for up to 30,000 abortions a year.

Illinois Republican Governor Bruce Rauner signed the bill in September, upsetting many conservatives.

“I do not think it’s fair to deny poor women the choice that wealthy women have,” Rauner said at the time.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois supported the law, saying it would keep women from being denied abortion coverage just because they were on Medicaid or worked for the state. Medicaid is a government healthcare program for the poor and disabled.

Ed Yohnka, the ACLU’s director of public policy and communications, on Thursday rejected the lawsuit’s contention that lawmakers needed to designate specific funds.

“That’s like saying the General Assembly has to appropriate money for knee replacements,” he said.

About 15 other states allow Medicaid to pay for abortion, including some required by courts, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Illinois was the first state in decades to voluntarily lift a restriction on such services.

Illinois’ Medicaid program has previously covered abortions in cases of rape, incest and when a mother’s life or health is threatened.

The expansion would enable poor women to obtain elective abortions. The law would also allow state employees to have the procedures covered under state health insurance.

The law’s passage by the Democratic-controlled Illinois legislature came after some other U.S. states, which are controlled by Republicans, have sought in recent years to tighten regulations on abortion clinics and forced closures in Texas and Kentucky.

Supreme Court’s cake case pits gay rights versus Christian faith

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – When conservative Christian baker Jack Phillips in 2012 politely but firmly told Colorado gay couple David Mullins and Charlie Craig he would not make them a cake to celebrate their wedding, it triggered a chain of events that will climax on Tuesday in highly anticipated U.S. Supreme Court arguments.

Phillips contends the U.S. Constitution’s free speech guarantees protect him from making a cake that would violate his religious beliefs against gay marriage. To Mullins and Craig, the baker’s refusal represented a simple case of unlawful discrimination based on sexual orientation.

In one of the biggest cases of the conservative-majority court’s nine-month term, the justices — just two years after legalizing gay marriage — must decide whether Phillips’ action was constitutionally protected and he can avoid punishment for violating Colorado anti-discrimination law.

A ruling favoring Phillips could open the door for certain businesses to spurn gay couples by invoking religious beliefs, as some wedding photographers, florists and others already have done.

The brief encounter at Phillips’ Masterpiece Cakeshop in the Denver suburb of Lakewood left Mullins and Craig distraught. They filed a successful complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the first step in the five-year-old legal battle that the nine justices will resolve in a ruling due by the end of June.

The baker’s lawyers argue that because his cakes are artistic endeavors, guarantees of freedom of speech and expression enshrined in the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protect Phillips from being forced to make baked creations that express a message he opposes on religious grounds.

Mullins and Craig were planning their wedding in Massachusetts that September and wanted the cake for a reception to be held in Colorado, where gay marriage was not yet legal. Craig’s mother witnessed the tense exchange, which he said made it harder for him to bear.

“I ended up starting to cry because I felt really bad and overwhelmed that my mom had to see me go through this. I guess it was the feeling of helplessness,” Craig said in an interview.

Phillips said he offered to sell the couple other products in his store but was adamant that his religious beliefs compelled him to draw a line when it comes to certain issues.

‘I SERVE EVERYBODY’

“Everybody that comes in my store is welcome in my store,” Phillips said in an interview. “I serve everybody that comes in and I create products for many events, just not all events.”

Based on his Christian beliefs, Phillips said he also refuses to make Halloween cakes as well as baked goods “that denigrate other people.”

The civil rights commission found that Phillips violated state anti-discrimination law that bars businesses from refusing service based on race, sex, marital status or sexual orientation. It ordered him to take remedial measures including staff training and the filing of quarterly compliance reports.

Phillips said he found the penalty “deeply offensive” in part because until recently his mother was one of his employees.

“I have to tell my mom, ‘Everything you have taught me doesn’t count here,'” Phillips said.

In 2015, the Colorado Court of Appeals also ruled against Phillips. The Colorado Supreme Court subsequently denied his appeal, prompting Phillips to take the case to the top U.S. court.

Evangelical Christians are an important part of President Donald Trump’s political base, and his administration filed a brief in support of Phillips.

The case puts 81-year-old Justice Anthony Kennedy, one of the court’s five conservative, in the spotlight. Kennedy, a potential deciding vote in a 5-4 ruling, has joined the court’s liberals in major decisions on issues such as abortion and gay rights. He authored the court’s landmark 2015 decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. But Kennedy is also a strong proponent of free speech rights.

CULTURAL FLASHPOINT

The case has become a cultural flashpoint in the United States that underscores the tensions between gay rights proponents and conservative Christians.

National advocacy groups have jumped in on both sides. Mullins and Craig are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union. Phillips is represented by the conservative Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom.

Similar cases are being litigated in other U.S. courts, and other countries also are confronting the issue. In April, Britain’s Supreme Court will consider whether a Christian-run bakery in Northern Ireland can refuse to make a cake backing gay rights.

In this case and others involving such issues as abortion, union dues and campaign funding, conservatives have relied on free speech arguments before the Supreme Court, but the issue of religious liberty still looms large.

“This is about will the U.S. Supreme Court decide that the fundamental freedoms and liberties that Americans have taken for granted for 200 years are still valid,” said Phillips’ lawyer, Kristen Waggoner.

The ACLU said a ruling favoring Phillips could lead to other efforts to skirt anti-discrimination laws.

“They are asking for a constitutional right to discriminate,” ACLU lawyer Louise Melling said. “This is not a case about a cake. It is a case about a very radical proposition.”

Mullins and Craig did get to celebrate their marriage with a cake made by another bakery. Phillips will once again encounter them on Tuesday, this time in the grand marble halls of the Supreme Court.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

Florida man sentenced to 25 years for attempt to blow up synagogue

(Reuters) – A Florida man was sentenced by a U.S. judge on Tuesday to 25 years in prison for trying to blow up a synagogue in the state during a Jewish holiday last year, court officials said.

James Medina, 41, will first be treated at a U.S. prison medical facility for a brain cyst and mental illness before being moved into the general prison population, U.S. District Judge Robert Scola in Miami ruled.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation began watching Medina, who had converted to Islam, after he began expressing anti-Semitic views and a wish to attack a synagogue. They launched an investigation in late March 2016, court documents showed

Medina, who faced up to life in prison, had pleaded guilty in August 2017 to charges of an attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and an attempted religious hate crime, court documents showed.

“This is a very, very serious offense,” Scola was quoted as saying in court by the Miami Herald.

Medina’s federal public defender, Hector Dopico, declined to comment when reached by Reuters on Tuesday afternoon.

Medina met with an FBI-affiliated confidential informant and explained his plan to attack a synagogue in Aventura, Florida, near Miami, the documents showed.

“Medina wanted to witness the explosion, hearing and feeling the blast from (a) nearby car,” the informant cited Medina as saying, according to the documents.

Asked why he wanted to do it, Medina said he wanted to kill Jews, adding: “It’s my call of duty.”

Medina was supplied with what he thought was an explosive device by federal law enforcement. The device was inert and posed no danger to the public, federal law enforcement said in court filings.

He was taken into custody as he approached the synagogue with the inert device and later admitted to his crimes, they said. No one was hurt.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; editing by Bernadette Baum and Diane Craft)

Hundreds of Las Vegas shooting victims file lawsuits in California court

By Tina Bellon

(Reuters) – Hundreds of victims of the Oct. 1 mass shooting in Las Vegas filed five lawsuits on Monday in a California court against the operators of the hotel from which the gunman fired, the organizers of the country music festival he targeted and the killer’s estate.

The largest of the lawsuits was filed on behalf of 450 people who were either injured in or witnessed the shooting, while the other four were brought by families of people who were killed or severely injured.

All five cases were filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Muhammad Aziz, a Houston-based lawyer heading the lawsuits, said they were filed in California because nearly all the plaintiffs were from the state and had been treated there. He noted that Live Nation Entertainment Inc, the event organizer, was a California-based company.

Stephen Paddock, 64, fired into the crowd gathered for the Route 91 Harvest Festival from a 32nd-floor hotel suite at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas on Oct. 1, killing 58 people and injuring hundreds more, the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Paddock also killed himself.

The victims accused the hotel operator MGM Resorts International and its subsidiary Mandalay Corp, which owns the hotel, of failing to properly monitor Paddock’s activities, train staff members and employ adequate security measures.

The festival goers also alleged Live Nation was negligent for failing to provide adequate exits and properly train staff for an emergency.

Several lawsuits have previously been filed in the shooting, mostly in Nevada state court. One of those filed on Monday was brought by college student Paige Gasper, who brought the first lawsuit over the mass shooting.

Gasper voluntarily dismissed the Nevada lawsuit on Friday.

Live Nation and MGM did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The companies have previously declined to comment on lawsuits.

Plaintiffs also sued the shooter’s estate for battery and assault. The reportedly wealthy shooter is thought to have had multimillion-dollar real estate investments across Texas and California.

A court hearing about who will be appointed to administer Paddock’s estate is set for Dec. 7.

Slide Fire Solutions, the maker of the so-called bump stock device Paddock used to achieve a near-automatic rate of fire, was named in previous lawsuits over the shooting, but not in any of the suits filed on Monday.

Aziz said Slide Fire was not named because most of his clients supported the right to bear arms.

“We want to focus on hotel and venue security, not turn this into a gun rights case,” he said.

(Reporting by Tina Bellon; editing by Anthony Lin and G Crosse)

German police arrest Syrian suspected of planning bomb attack

BERLIN (Reuters) – German police arrested a 19-year-old Syrian suspected of planning an Islamist-motivated bomb attack in Germany with the aim of killing as many people as possible, the federal prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday.

The man, whose name was given as Yamen A., was arrested in the early hours in the northeastern town of Schwerin. Police searched his home and also those of other people not suspected of being directly involved.

“According to the findings so far, Yamen A. made the decision no later than July 2017 to detonate an explosive device in Germany in order to kill and injure as many people as possible,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

“As a result, he began to procure components and chemicals needed to make an explosive device. Whether the suspect had already envisaged a specific target for his bomb attack is still unclear,” the office added.

There were no indications that he was a member of a terrorist organization, it said. It did not say when he arrived in Germany.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is trying to form a new coalition government after elections last month, has come under fire for allowing more than one million people to enter Germany over the past two years – many of them refugees from Syria.

Her ‘open door’ refugee policy saw her conservatives bleed support in the election to the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD), which won seats in the national parliament for the first time.

The prosecutor’s office said it would give an update on the investigation at 2 p.m. (1300 GMT).

(Writing by Paul Carrel; Editing by Peter Graff)

Brooklyn man sentenced to 15 years prison over Islamic State support

By Jonathan Stempel and Brendan Pierson

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A Brooklyn man was sentenced on Friday to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to provide material support to Islamic State.

Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev, 27, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge William Kuntz in the federal court in Brooklyn.

The defendant, an Uzbekistan citizen who once chopped salad at a Brooklyn gyro shop, was one of six people charged in the same case with plotting to aid Islamic State, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization.

Prosecutors sought a 15-year prison term, the maximum possible. Lawyers for Juraboev sought no more than five years, calling him an “unsophisticated, gullible, and lonely young man” who reached “wrong conclusions” about Islam and Islamic State.

Michael Weil, a federal public defender representing Juraboev, declined to comment after the sentencing.

Authorities said Juraboev had in August 2014 posted an online threat to kill then-U.S. President Barack Obama on behalf of Islamic State, and spoke of planting a bomb on Coney Island if the group ordered it.

Juraboev was arrested in February 2015, after buying a plane ticket to fly the next month to Istanbul, Turkey, intending to then travel to Syria to join Islamic State, authorities said.

Two co-defendants, Akhror Saidakhmetov and Abror Habibov, pleaded guilty this year, and charges are still pending against co-defendants Dilkhayot Kasimov, Azizjon Rakhmatov and Akmal Zakirov, court records show. Saidakhmetov faces a Dec. 13 sentencing.

Saidakhmetov was also arrested in February 2015, as he was boarding a plane to Istanbul, authorities said.

The arrests of Juraboev and Saidakhmetov followed roughly five months of interactions between the men and a paid informant posing as being ideologically sympathetic.

Other defendants were charged with conspiring to pay Juraboev’s and Saidakhmetov’s travel expenses.

Another Uzbekistan citizen, Dilshod Khusanov, was in August charged in a separate case with having discussed with Zakirov providing funds for Saidakhmetov’s trip, and helping others join Islamic State or al-Nusrah Front, another militant group.

More than 100 people have faced U.S. charges in connection with Islamic State since 2014.

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

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