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Dozens of former prosecutors are voicing concerns over the criminal charges against a pair of New York City lawyers accused of firebombing a police vehicle amid violent protests last month, with some claiming the prosecution appears to be based more on politics than public safety.
In a written brief to a federal court on Tuesday, 56 former federal prosecutors urged the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reject government efforts to keep Colinford Mattis and Urooj Rahman in custody. Both face a series of charges that could carry at least 45 years in prison.
“The government seems to be trying to do everything it can to punish people charged in these protests as harshly as possible, and they’re going way overboard here,” said Duncan Levin, a former prosecutor who worked for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn.
NY POST: PHOTO SHOWS WOMAN HOLDING MOLOTOV
Colinford Mattis, 32, and Urooj Rahman, 31, were ordered to remain in police custody Friday after a federal court granted a request from prosecutors to hold them.
“This case should have been charged in state court,” he added. “This seems more than anything like scare tactics and trumped-up charges by the federal government.”
Lucy Lang, a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan, called the mandatory prison sentences “a relic of a bygone era of draconian policies that have hurt families and communities for decades.”
Mattis and Rahman, both Brooklyn attorneys, were granted bail earlier this month but were detained by federal authorities after prosecutors appealed the decision. Rahman, 31, a human rights lawyer, is accused of throwing what authorities describe as a Molotov cocktail into a New York City police vehicle outside Brooklyn's 88th Precinct amid clashes between protesters and police on May 30 over the death of George Floyd.
No one was injured in the attack and the pair were arrested a short time later. Officers found a lighter, a Bud Light beer bottle filled with toilet paper and a gasoline tank in the back of a minivan driven by Mattis, a 32-year-old corporate attorney.
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Authorities said the pair also planned to distribute Molotov cocktails to other demonstrators.
“Those who carry out attacks on NYPD officers or vehicles are not protesters,” U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue said in a statement. “They are criminals and they will be treated as such.”
Rahman's attorney, Paul Schechtman, said his client and Mattis got caught up in the passion of the protest. Federal prosecutors, however, aren't buying it.
“These were lawyers, in particular, who had every reason to know what they were doing was wrong,” Assistant U.S. Attorney David Kessler told the court.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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