Uhuru 3 Attorneys File Post-Trial Motion for a Judgment of Acquittal on the Conspiracy Charge or a New Trial

On Thursday, October 10 Attorney Leonard Goodman filed a post-trial motion on behalf of the Uhuru 3. It is a motion for a judgment of acquittal on the conspiracy charge or a new trial.

The motion lays out the following issues:

1. The evidence at trial was undisputed: there was no evidence of direction or control, an essential element of the conspiracy charge. It was affirmed by the FBI’s own case agents that there was no evidence the Chairman or Uhuru 3 worked under the direction or control of the Russian government.

2. The FBI case agents agreed there was no evidence that the defendants had any knowledge of a “registration” requirement under 18 USC 951, therefore it is impossible that the Uhuru 3 could have “knowingly and wilfully conspired” to act as Russian agents without notification to the attorney general’s office.

3. The verdict is inconsistent. Because the jury acquitted the Uhuru 3 of being Russian agents, none of the overt acts presented as substantive offenses in the foreign agents charge can be considered ‘overt acts’ in furtherance of the conspiracy.

4. The jury was not properly instructed that it must find the elements of the underlying crime (“acting as foreign agents without notifying the attorney general’s office”) to convict on the conspiracy charge. Additionally the prosecutors misled the jury by telling them in closing arguments that a conspiracy was merely a “partnership.”

5. The jury should have been instructed not to consider evidence against Romain as evidence against the Uhuru 3.

6. The prosecutors introduced misleading, inflammatory and irrelevant evidence erroneously telling the jury the Uhuru 3 had agreed to build a “doxing” website with Russian support.

7. The court should not have denied the Uhuru 3 attorneys’ request to add a sentence to the jury instructions clarifying that simply doing something “at the request” of a foreign principal is not a crime.

8. The hearsay statements by Popov, Sukodholov and other alleged Russian co-conspirators should not have been allowed to be introduced as evidence, as there was no independent evidence of a conspiracy and therefore those statements could not be considered as being made in furtherance of the conspiracy.

9. The court should not have refused the defendants’ request to replace the sole African juror with the alternate African juror. 10. The government’s expert witnesses should not have been permitted to testify, as their testimony was not necessary to establish that Ionov was working as an informant to the FSB.