NEW YORK – The government has told a federal judge in New York he doesn't have authority to release an ailing disbarred civil rights lawyer serving a 10-year prison sentence after a terrorism-related conviction.
Prosecutors say in court papers a request by lawyers for Lynne Stewart that a judge order her release so she can better fight terminal cancer should be rejected. They say a judge doesn't have the authority to reconsider or modify a term of imprisonment previously imposed unless the Bureau of Prisons requests it.
Defense lawyers made the request last week after the director of the Bureau of Prisons rejected a compassionate-release request from Stewart in June.
Stewart was convicted of helping a blind Egyptian sheik relay messages from prison. She's at a Texas medical center. She's been imprisoned since 2009.
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