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White supremacists railroaded in Scottsdale bombing???
I suspect there is a good chance these two guys are guilty of this bombing. But sadly from all the articles I have read the cops didn't present a sherd of evidence the guys did it. The logic the cops used to arrest the guys and convict them was that they are skin head racists who must have committed the crime. While that logic may be true, a jury should not have convicted them with out any evidence that they committed the crime. I think the guys were railroaded by the criminal injustice system. White supremacist brother guilty in Scottsdale bombing by Ofelia Madrid - Feb. 24, 2012 10:38 PM The Republic | azcentral.com Two days before the eighth anniversary of a bomb attack on a former Scottsdale diversity-office director, who is Black, a federal jury convicted one of two White supremacist brothers of masterminding the explosion, but not of a hate crime. The jury found Dennis Mahon guilty Friday of conspiracy to damage buildings and property by means of explosives; malicious damage of a building by means of explosives; and distribution of information related to explosives. Dennis' brother, Daniel, was found not guilty of a single count: conspiracy to damage buildings and property. Dennis Mahon will be sentenced May 22 in U.S. District Court. He faces at least 40 years in prison. The Feb. 26, 2004, pipe bomb was addressed to Don Logan and delivered to the Scottsdale Office of Diversity and Dialogue, where he was director. When Logan opened the cardboard box, the 1-inch-by-5-inch pipe bomb exploded in his hands, badly injuring him. He has since recovered. Two other city employees also were injured. Logan, who attended the court proceedings almost daily, looked down when the clerk read the jury's decision that he wasn't targeted because of his race. Outside the courthouse, he said he did not understand how the case against the Mahons didn't warrant enough for conviction of a hate crime. "They are known White supremacists ... I'm Black. They didn't know me," Logan said. He pointed to the wiretaps the federal government had on the 61-year-old identical twins. "What I saw on those tapes was racist," he said. Bill Straus, director of the Arizona chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, said he was disappointed the predominantly White jury of five men and seven women didn't find race to be a primary motivation behind the bombing. He called the case "a textbook example of a hate crime." "The reason that sentences can be enhanced for hate crimes is because hate crimes are the only kind of crime that sends a message to an entire community," Straus said. "It's a very threatening message. It can't be more clear, 'You are not welcome here.' That's the message of pretty much every hate crime. People in that community, that's the message they got from the bomb." Logan said that although he is physically scarred for life and deals with emotional scars daily, he will be OK. "We'll move forward," Logan said. "It's a sad comment that in 2012, we are still dealing with issues that preceded the civil-rights movement, attacks based on race. ... There's still work to do." During the six-week trial, prosecutors said the twins carried out the bombing on behalf of the White Aryan Resistance, an organization that encourages members to commit acts of violence against non-Whites. They played racist voice-mail messages that Dennis Mahon left for an undercover informant in which he called Logan a racial slur. In another audio recording, Daniel Mahon is heard yelling the same racial slur out the window of a truck as the brothers and informant are driving near Logan's former office. "Racism isn't a crime," defense attorney Deborah Williams told jurors in her closing statements Tuesday. She speculated that the pipe bomb was the inside job of a city employee, upset with Logan and his role as diversity director. The brothers were arrested in June 2009 on their Davis Junction, Ill., farm, where they lived with their parents. The arrests came after a 5�-year investigation in which federal authorities hired a younger woman to befriend the Mahons and gather evidence against them. Defense attorneys urged jurors to examine the testimony of a confidential informant, Rebecca Williams, a former stripper hired by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Federal prosecutors told jurors that the same day the pipe bomb was left at a Scottsdale library, addressed to Logan, Dennis Mahon mailed a last will and testament to his father in Illinois. He and his brother were living in Arizona at the time. |