State Florida. District Southern District of Florida. Sting Yes. Involves Informant Yes. Charges Material support Importation, manufacture, distribution, or storage of explosive material Seditious conspiracy. Found Guilty: May 10, Sentenced: November 18, Imprisonment 13 years and 6 months.
Supervised Release 35 years. Released: March 23, Age Gender Male. The group studied Bible passages, wore paramilitary uniforms with American flag and Star of David patches, and smoked weed. Most worked in construction. The acquaintance, Abbas Alsaidi, was an FBI informant with a motive to deliver, as the promise to help the FBI helped him out of jail time for domestic violence. The FBI, under pressure to take anyone they considered even a remote risk of terror of the street, operated under a specific logic of negative proof.
As explained by former agent Anthony Velazquez in the film, the agency concocted a series of snares meant to disprove the group that led Batiste and his followers further and further into a sinkhole. The FBI staged meetings with another questionable informant, Elie Assaad once arrested, but not charged, for beating his pregnant wife posing as a man with al-Qaida friends; convinced the group to move to a wiretapped warehouse; had Assaad prod Batiste to swear an oath to al-Qaida that feels homespun and low-stakes, despite the implications.
Batiste, once an aspiring actor, was spitballing, using street logic of posturing in a hustle for some much-needed cash. The FBI took everything seriously.
We grew up, everybody got killed or got sent to jail.
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