TAMPA, Florida — Jurors in Florida will deliberate Wednesday in the trial of four activists accused of illegally acting as Russian agents to help the Kremlin sow political division and interfere in US elections.
All four are or were affiliated with the African People’s Socialist Party and Uhuru Movement, which has offices in St. Petersburg, Florida, and St. Louis. Among the defendants is Omali Yeshitela, the 82-year-old president of the U.S.-based organization that focuses on Black empowerment and the effort to obtain reparations for slavery and what it considers the earlier genocide of Africans.
The government also charged Penny Hess, 78, and Jesse Nevel, 34, two leaders of the group’s white allies branches. A fourth defendant, Augustus C. Romain Jr., 38, was expelled from the Uhurus in 2018 and formed his own group in Atlanta called The Black Hammer.
Attorneys concluded their arguments late Tuesday night and jurors told the judge they wanted to go home for the night. Tampa Bay Times reported. The trial was supposed to last a month, but proceeded quickly and ended after a week of testimony.
“The defendants knowingly and willingly collaborated with the Russian government,” prosecutor Menno Goedman told the jury in his closing argument. “Look at their own words.”
However, the defense argued that Yeshitela had merely gambled and was not certain.
Chicago attorney Leonard Goodman, who represents Hess, argued that Aleksandr Ionov, who heads an organization known as the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, concealed his relationship with Russian intelligence from the Uhurus.
The government has “not proven that they knew Ionov was a Russian agent or a Russian government official,” Goodman said.
The defense attorney called the case “dangerous” to the First Amendment and alleged that the government was trying to silence the Uhurus for expressing their views.
Yeshitela, Hess and Nevel each face up to 15 years in prison if convicted of conspiracy to defraud the United States and failing to register with the Justice Department as agents of a foreign government. Romain faces up to five years on a registration charge. All have pleaded not guilty.
Three Russians, two of whom prosecutors say are Russian intelligence agents, are also charged in the case but have not yet been arrested.
While there are some indications that Russia interfered in the 2016 US presidential election, US District Judge William Jung has said those issues are not part of this case.
Prosecutors say the group’s members acted under Russian direction in organizing protests in 2016, claiming that black people were victims of genocide in the U.S., and took other actions favorable to Russia over the next six years, including opposing U.S. policy in the war in Ukraine.
However, defense lawyers have said that despite their connections to the Russian organization, the actions of the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement were precisely in line with what they have been advocating for more than 50 years. Yeshitela founded the organization in 1972 as a Black empowerment group that opposed vestiges of colonialism around the world.