Boston Marathon Bombings - Dress Rehearsal for a Nationwide Lockdown and Martial Law

The implementation of martial law was successful. It was a graduation of our police state status.

Victims Of Boston Bombing Police State Lockdown Speak Out


Published on May 3, 2013

Ron Paul called the manhunt and door-to-door searches in Watertown Mass a Martial Law exercise.

Boston Marathon bomber's college pal gets 6 years in prison

June 2, 2015

AP - A college friend of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced Tuesday to six years in prison after he apologized to the victims and their families for not calling police when he recognized photos of Tsarnaev as a suspect.


Dias Kadyrbayev, 21, pleaded guilty last year to obstruction of justice and conspiracy charges for removing items from Tsarnaev's dorm room after recognizing his friend in photos released by the FBI days after the bombing.

Prosecutors say Kadyrbayev knew Tsarnaev was a suspect soon after the FBI released photos of Tsarnaev and his brother on April 18, 2013, three days after the bombing.

At about 8:45 p.m. that night, Kadyrbayev sent Tsarnaev a text message: "U saw the news?"

In a reply text, Tsarnaev said he did, then said, "Better not text me my friend," and added, "Lol."

Kadyrbayev texted back, "u saw urself in there?"

Tsarnaev responded by telling him he could go to his dorm room and "take what's there."

That's when Kadyrbayev went to Tsarnaev's room with two other friends. There, he and another man agreed to remove Tsarnaev's computer and a backpack containing fireworks that had been partially emptied of their explosive powder. Kadyrbayev threw the backpack into a garbage dumpster. It was later recovered at a landfill after federal agents spent two days searching for it.

Kadyrbayev said Tuesday that he had no explanation for his actions.

"I can't find an answer. I really can't believe that I acted so stupidly," he told Judge Douglas Woodlock before his sentence was imposed.

Kadyrbayev had faced up to seven years in prison under a plea agreement with prosecutors. His lawyer had sought a three-year sentence.

He will get credit for the 26 months he's been in custody and will be deported to his native Kazakhstan when his prison term is up.

In a sentencing memo filed in court, prosecutors said Kadyrbayev had the power to help law enforcement identify Tsarnaev and prevent additional violence, possibly including the murder of Massachusetts Institute of Technology police Officer Sean Collier, who was killed by the Tsarnaev brothers as they tried to flee after the FBI released their photos. Dzhokhar's older brother, Tamerlan, died after a shootout with police.

In court Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie Siegmann said Kadyrbayev showed "callous disregard" for the victims of the bombings and law enforcement when he failed to report Tsarnaev's identity and removed evidence from his dorm room.

"He decided to get rid of the evidence to help his friend," Siegmann said.

Collier's sister had been expected to speak Tuesday, but at the beginning of the hearing, prosecutors informed the judge that she had withdrawn her request. Siegmann quoted from a letter written by Collier's stepfather in which the family said they believe if Kadyrbayev had reported Tsarnaev's identity to authorities, he could possibly have prevented Collier's death.

Kadyrbayev's father, Murat, traveled from Kazakhstan to attend his son's sentencing hearing. He said his son didn't fully understand in the moment how serious his actions were.

"Had he known what he was doing and had he understood what he was doing, we wouldn't be standing here," Murat Kadyrbayev said through a translator outside court.

Three people were killed and more than 260 were injured in the bombing April 15, 2013, near the marathon's finish line.

A jury last month sentenced Tsarnaev to death for the attack. He will be formally sentenced June 24.

The two friends who went to Tsarnaev's dorm room with Kadyrbayev are scheduled to be sentenced Friday.

2 friends of Boston Marathon bomber sentenced to prison

June 6, 2015

AP - Two college friends of marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were sentenced Friday to prison after one tearfully apologized to the residents of Boston for impeding the investigation and the other had a show of support from former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis.

Azamat Tazhayakov, 21, was sentenced to 3½ years for impeding the investigation into the attack while authorities frantically searched for the bombers. He was convicted of conspiracy and obstruction of justice for agreeing with another friend to remove Tsarnaev's backpack from his dorm room at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. The backpack contained fireworks that had been emptied of their explosive powder.

Later Friday, 21-year-old Robel Phillipos was given a three-year sentence for lying to the FBI about being in Tsarnaev's dorm room days after the bombings. The judge said Phillipos was to blame for a "substantial diversion" of law enforcement resources.

"There's a price to be paid for the failure of responsibility," Judge Douglas Woodlock said.

Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of a little more than five years in prison. Phillipos' lawyers had asked for two years of home confinement. The sentence ultimately given to Phillipos was the most lenient penalty imposed on the three friends who were charged.

Dukakis, a friend of Phillipos' family and the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, wrote a letter of support for him and even testified during his trial.

In his letter to the judge, Dukakis wrote that he "can't understand why justice would be served by incarcerating him."

Phillipos was accused of telling nine lies to the FBI but was acquitted of four of them. The jury rejected the government's claim that he lied when he said he did not see anyone take Tsarnaev's backpack and did not see any fireworks.

Lawyers for Phillipos said they had hoped the judge would spare him jail time since he was the least culpable of the three friends.

"This was a case that screamed out for probation," said attorney Susan Church.

Phillipos did not speak before sentencing on the advice of his lawyers because he is appealing his conviction.

He was ordered to report to begin serving his sentence by June 24. But his lawyers said they may file a motion to stay his sentence while he appeals. If granted, that would mean he would not have to go to prison while his appeal is pending.

The bombings on April 15, 2013, killed three people and injured more than 260. Tsarnaev is awaiting formal sentencing after a jury condemned him to die for committing the attack with his now-dead older brother, Tamerlan.

Tazhayakov and the two other friends went to Tsarnaev's dorm room three days after the bombings, hours after the FBI released photos of the Tsarnaev brothers as suspects in the bombings.

One of them, Dias Kadyrbayev, was sentenced this week to six years in prison for removing Tsarnaev's backpack from the room and tossing it in a trash bin. He was also convicted of taking Tsarnaev's laptop.

Tazhayakov was found guilty of agreeing with Kadyrbayev to take the backpack and throw it away.

"I apologize to the people of Boston for what I did," Tazhayakov said Friday before he was sentenced.

He also denounced Tsarnaev's actions.

"I want to say that I don't support an extremist. I don't support any Muslim radicalization," he said. "It just makes me sick what Dzhokhar did on April 15."

None of Tsarnaev's friends was accused of knowing about the bombings ahead of time.

The judge said their crimes were still severe because they impeded an investigation into a terrorist attack at a time when investigators were trying to determine the identities of the bombers. Hours later, the Tsarnaev brothers fatally shot Massachusetts Institute of Technology police Officer Sean Collier and had a wild shootout with police in Watertown. Tamerlan Tsarnaev died following the gunbattle.

"There is no question that this was a very serious offense — the failure to act properly when confronted with the devastating event," Woodlock said.

Tazhayakov will receive credit for the more than two years he has already spent in jail. His lawyer said he expects him to finish his sentence in nine months to a year. After that, he will be deported to his native Kazakhstan.

David Archibald, one of the jurors who convicted Tazhayakov, attended the sentencing hearing and afterward said he believes Tazhayakov "got off easy." Archibald said he believes Tazhayakov might have prevented Collier's death if he had reported Tsarnaev to authorities immediately.

"If he spoke up, the FBI would have had a good idea who they were looking for," he said.

Prosecutors had asked for a four-year sentence.

Jury sentences Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death [Excerpt]

Dzhokhar Tsavnaev, who was convicted on April 8, 2015 on all 30 counts related to the April 15, 2013 bombings and the shooting death of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer three days after the attacks, will be sentenced on June 26, 2015. 

May 15, 2015

Yahoo! News - Though Tsarnaev pled not guilty, Judy Clarke, his attorney, admitted her client’s role on day one of the first phase of the trial in March and repeatedly reiterated it, right up until the closing statements in the penalty phase.

“I’m not asking you to excuse him,” Clark told jurors. “There are no excuses. I’m not asking you for sympathy.” 

But Clarke did plead for “mercy” for her client, asking jurors to spare his life in spite of the “senseless and catastrophic acts” he committed.

“If not for Tamerlan, this wouldn’t have happened,” Clarke said. “Dzhokhar would never have done this but for Tamerlan. The tragedy would never have occurred but for Tamerlan. None of it.” 

Though Tsarnaev did not take the stand on his behalf and often appeared dispassionate in court, even during the most emotional and horrific testimony, the defense called as its final witness Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun and death penalty opponent who inspired the film “Dead Man Walking.” She told the jury of several meetings she had with the convicted bomber starting right before the trial and how, in one meeting, he had expressed sympathy for the bombing victims.

“He said it emphatically. He said, ‘No one deserves to suffer like they did,’” Prejean testified.  

Throughout the trial, prosecutors painted Tsarnaev as a cold-blooded killer who deceived even his closest friends about his jihadist leanings and remains unrepentant about what he did. They argued he was an “equal partner” who walked in lockstep with his brother to carry out an attack aimed at inflicting terror and mayhem at one of Boston’s most celebrated public events to avenge the deaths of Muslims in wars overseas. The government repeatedly showed the jury surveillance video of Tsarnaev dropping a backpack that contained one of the bombs behind the family of 8-year-old Martin Richard, the youngest victim of the bombings, and of him casually buying milk 20 minutes after the attack. They pointed to video of Tsarnaev flashing the middle finger to a security camera in a court holding cell before his July 2013 arraignment as proof that he remains defiant.

“No remorse, no apology,” Steven Mellin, another prosecutor, argued. He insisted there was no other “just” punishment for what Tsarnaev did than the death penalty.

The jury’s decision to condemn Tsarnaev to death was a huge victory for the federal government, who pursued the sentence in spite of misgivings among some victims and family members of those killed. Among the most notable opponents of the death penalty: Richard’s parents, who, in a statement published on the front page of the Boston Globe, pleaded for prosecutors to accept a plea deal of life in prison for Tsarnaev to “end the anguish” of the trial and likely years of appeals.

There was also strong opposition from residents of Boston, where many people oppose the death penalty on moral or religious grounds. Even after some of the most heinous testimony in the trial, a WBUR poll of Boston residents found that 62 percent of them favored a life sentence for Tsarnaev.

Tsarnaev will be formally sentenced at a hearing in coming weeks, where victims will be allowed to give impact statements and address the defendant. And Tsarnaev, too, will be given the opportunity to speak — though it’s unclear if he will.

Even at the conclusion of the nearly three-month-long trial, there were still many mysteries around the bombing plot. Prosecutors never said where the two pressure-cooker bombs were built — though it was strongly implied it was at the Tsarnaev family apartment in Cambridge.

There was also the mystery of Katherine Russell, Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s wife, and what, if anything, she knew of the plot. According to defense evidence, Russell was copied on many emails that Tamerlan Tsarnaev sent to his brother containing jihadist videos and writings. And in early 2012, just after Tamerlan Tsarnaev traveled to Russia to pursue jihad, someone using Russell’s computer searched phrases including “rewards for wife of mujahedeen” and “If your husband becomes a shahid, what are the rewards for you?”

Through her attorney, Russell has denied knowledge of the plot. Though her mother, best friend and former roommate testified, Russell was never called as a witness in the trial, and she has never been formally cleared by federal investigators.

Perhaps the biggest enigma of all remains Tsarnaev. Though his defense team went into great detail about his family’s troubles — including a father who was so mentally ill he saw imaginary lizards crawling on his body — the jury learned more about the motivations of Tsarnaev’s older brother, Tamerlan, than his.

A litany of former teachers and friends testified, often tearfully, about the kind and gentle “Jahar” they had known — a smart kid who seemed to thrive in spite of his dysfunctional family. Sitting in court just feet away from him, they stared at Tsarnaev and expressed shock that the boy they knew committed one of the most horrific crimes Boston has seen. They testified about Tsarnaev’s hopes and dreams, how he’d talked about being an engineer or becoming an attorney.

While the jury heard testimony about the relationship between Tsarnaev and his domineering older brother, Tamerlan, the defense did not definitively answer the questions of why and how a 19-year-old college kid who spent most of his time smoking pot and playing video games with his friends came to be a terrorist.

“If you’re looking to me for a simple and clean answer as to why this young man, who had never been arrested, who had never sassed a teacher, who spent his free time in school working with disabled kids … if you expect me to have an answer, a simple, clean answer as to how this could happen, I don’t have it,” Clarke told jurors in her closing statement. “I don't have it."

If he had stayed on track, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev likely would have graduated with the rest of the class of 2015 at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, which held its commencement ceremonies Friday. But instead, he was in a federal courtroom in Boston, learning that his life was over.