MALE SPEAKER:
What time is it?
MINERVA VAZQUEZ, Narseal’s former wife:
6:48.
Texarkana
Federal Prison
MINERVA VAZQUEZ:
I think he’s just going to be so happy to be a free man. So happy to see his children.
MALE SPEAKER:
Oh, man. Damn, boy!
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Thirteen years ago my face was all over the news media. The FBI told me I was on "Larry King Live" the day I was arrested.
Come on, let me get one more hug from everybody.
Now I'm just the average person walking down the street.
MINERVA VAZQUEZ:
This is what took place because of bad choices of words that he made. And that's all he ever did was say. Speak. Talk. Nonsense.
ALBERTO GONZALES, United States Attorney General (2005-2007):
Batiste intended to recruit and supervise individuals to organize and train for a mission of war against the United States.
ROD VEREEN, Sunny Phanor's attorney:
Narseal, he had good intentions, but he is also a good con man. And when the two run afoul, this is what you get. Mayhem.
NEWSREADER:
Federal authorities described the group as radical Black Muslims.
JOHN PISTOLE, Deputy Director, FBI (2004-2010):
Their goal was simple: to commit attacks against America.
ROD VEREEN:
Just like the gang that couldn’t shoot straight, they got convicted on not what they were able to do, but what they were able to say.
NEWSREADER:
Six to eight people are now in federal custody after allegedly plotting to attack well-known U.S. cities.
NEWSREADER:
The federal government is calling this bust a major victory on the domestic front in this shadowy war.
ROD VEREEN:
Next to being a pedophile, a terrorist is the next worst thing you can be.
NEWSREADER:
Narseal Batiste claimed his soldiers would, quote, “kill all the devils we can.”
NEWSREADER:
An FBI informant promised them $50,000 if they pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda.
ROD VEREEN:
Federal Bureau of Investigation, they invented the players, they invented the theme, they invented how it was going to go down. They wrote this script. They wrote this script.
JOHN PISTOLE:
They conducted surveillance. They conspired to murder countless Americans through attacks that would be, in their words, quote, “just as good or greater than 9/11.”
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
It can be just as good or greater than 9/11.
ROD VEREEN:
This is not the case that they want America to see. There are some serious terrorists out there that America needs to be concentrating on. This right here was just a—it was almost like, "Let’s do a dry run. If we can convict somebody as lazy and sorry as this crew was, then we can convict anybody."
Miami
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ, FBI Special Agent (1991-2015):
In 2005, I was the acting supervisory special agent with the FBI in Miami. The domestic Al Qaeda squad.
I was born in the Bronx, my brother and I. Both my parents became addicted to heroin, which wasn't very unusual for that period in American history. My father had been arrested a few times. He was involved in a credit card ring. Another time he was arrested for narcotics. Coming from that experience, you're always looking for an angle, because everybody has a hustle.
So I graduate high school—how, I don't know, but I did. Spent nine years in the military, went to school at night and then I put in an application with the FBI. FBI calls nine months later and I end up at Quantico. Got out in '92, ended up in Miami, and you wake up and 10 years have gone by.
And then 9/11 happens.
On Sept. 10, if we would have saw a movie on the events that happened on Sept. 11, we all would have left that movie theater and said, "That is a phenomenal movie, but it could never happen in the United States." And on Sept. 11, it did. And what did they use? They didn't use bombs or weapons. They used box cutters and complacency. We got sucker punched.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:
On September the 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country. The evidence we have gathered all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as Al Qaeda.
Robert Mueller
FBI Director
JOHN PISTOLE:
Director Robert Mueller had been the director of the FBI for one week prior to 9/11. He went to brief President Bush. Within a minute of telling the president, vice president and others about the 19 hijackers that we’d already learned about and everything, President Bush cut him off and said, “That’s all well and good, Mr. Director, but I want to know what the FBI is doing to prevent the next attack.”
Director Mueller’s job was then to take that mission, to take the FBI from that reactive, crime-solving agency to a preventative national security agency.
THOMAS SLADE GORTON:
Mr. Pistole, with respect to preventing 9/11, obviously you get a failing grade.
JOHN PISTOLE:
So the concern within the FBI immediately after 9/11 is that there were other either sleeper cells or there were other terrorist operatives in the U.S., and who else did they have positioned to commit a second attack, and what-—how that attack might manifest itself. We didn’t know, because there was a gap in the intelligence about what attacks might be taking place. We realized there are huge gaps that we didn’t know the answers to.
FBI Office
Miami
JOHN PISTOLE:
One of the good things about the FBI’s history was the ability to identify and develop cooperating witnesses and informants. So, in the decade after 9/11, let’s say, there was a great focus on developing human sources of information about attacks, potential attacks.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
We would get a tremendous amount of intelligence in the form of leads. Now it's post-9/11, so each one of these has to be shaken out.
October
2005
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
One of my colleagues comes in and he says, "Look, I have some information from an informant that there's a group of guys in Miami, in Liberty City, that are conducting military training, that are interested in overthrowing the U.S. government and that want to meet Al Qaeda." This was like a unicorn. How does Al Qaeda pop up in Liberty City?
Liberty City
Miami
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
Some areas were high drug trafficking areas, and there were shootouts all the time. The group were part of this hybrid religious-militant organization.
FBI Surveillance
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
They do military-type training. They do not believe in the laws of the United States. They were basically anti-government.
So at this point, we’re assessing the veracity of the informant’s information. The person he was referring to was Narseal Batiste. Batiste was the leader. We’re still trying to determine what his motive is. What is he really up to?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I wanted to be an actor. It was interesting to see myself intrigue people over a character. I went to modeling school. I had a big interest in modeling and in acting at the time. I always loved martial arts. That’s just come from watching Shaolin Temple kung fu master movies, you know?
FRANCES BATISTE BRAUD, Narseal’s sister:
Narseal was the baby. He was the last one. My mother had just had Narseal. She came home from the hospital and put him in my bed and told me it was my baby, that she don't change diapers and she don't fix bottle milks and for me to take care of him.
My mom and dad, they did Baptist preaching. They was ordained Baptists. At that time my parents were very wealthy from my dad's construction company. My dad was doing government jobs like building post offices, colleges, prisons. So he really blew up in his construction business.
What changed in Narseal's life, he met this man that wore these diapers on his head and carried a cane. And his name was G-G-G-something Thena.
George Gray
aka Master G.J.G. Atheea
FRANCES BATISTE BRAUD:
He was telling me Narseal's the 33-something of the 76-something. That he's Jesus. I said, "No, my brother is not Jesus." Then the next thing I know, my brother start changing. He start wearing diapers on his head and carrying a staff.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Well, I created my own style of religion. You know what I mean? My robes and what I wore was very unique. Nobody else on the street wore what I wore. My style had something like a much more of a martial arts, Egyptian-type of mixture outfit. I wore a lot of velvets and Indian cotton. Sage rope. A staff in my hand or a rod. That's what I looked like: an ancient type of holy man. Looked like I stepped out of the Bible.
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
Naz—beautiful brother. Beautiful brother. He seemed like he fell out of heaven. He had that innocent quality to him.
PREACHER:
And we choose—
TRANSLATOR:
[Speaking Haitian Creole]
PREACHER:
—to worship almighty God.
TRANSLATOR:
[Speaking Haitian Creole]
PREACHER:
On this day—
TRANSLATOR:
[Speaking Haitian Creole]
PREACHER:
—you are trusting in God.
TRANSLATOR:
[Speaking Haitian Creole]
PREACHER:
I’ve come here to tell you today.
TRANSLATOR:
[Speaking Haitian Creole]
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
I was born here in the United States, but my mom and dad are from Haiti. Seventeen, 18, I got baptized. And when I got baptized I was feeling it. It was just something on me. I was feeling it. And by that time in my life, I knew things wasn’t fair.
PREACHER 2:
And have power and authority—
TRANSLATOR:
[Speaking Haitian Creole]
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
When we talk about leaders and who we look up to, we looked up to Naz, because Naz knew the Bible. He spoke it and he really was about it.
PREACHER 2:
—as a prophet of God.
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
He grew up real close to God. So we always were searching. So when he smiled, it was something that he had that was almost innocent. He ain’t—he wasn’t spoiled like the rest of us. [Laughs]
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
Naz was perfect. There was no street in him at all. I was like 19, 18. I was the youngest one out of everybody. I was still going to night school trying to graduate, a high school diploma. Naz was a Black activist wanting to help out the community.
FBI Surveillance
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
That's what you got off the top.
He was really savvy when it came to the Bible, decoding it or making the Bible in layman’s terms. Making it to the point where I could understand it. He asked me to read a passage or something, he realized I couldn’t read and then he was like, “OK. It’s all right, you can stop right there.” And he pulled me to the side later, he was like, “How old are you?” I was like, "I’m like 19.” He’s like, “You really should work on that, learning how to read.” I was like, “Yeah, I know.” He’s like, “If you want I could help you sometimes.” And I said, “OK, cool.”
Burson Augustin
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
I done introduced Naz to Naudy.
Naudimar Herrera
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
I done introduced Naz to my brother.
Rothschild Augustin
Patrick Abraham
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
Pat knew Sunny.
Sunny Phanor
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
Sunny brought Levi.
Levi Lemorin
Narseal Batiste
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Eventually they did become my followers. They joined the temple and they agreed to give me the head position as the high priest of the temple.
The actual temple was right across the street from a projects that they call the Pork 'n' Beans Projects.
There's a lot of gun selling, drug dealing and a lot of violence that goes on, and drive-by shootings.
LYGLENSON “LEVI” LEMORIN:
So we rent the warehouse. But it was supposed to be a temple. A temple. We had Bibles. We had Quran. We had certain books—the Hare Krishna. We had certain books because it was everybody was welcome to our table. That was the whole one thing about why we called it a temple. Because what's in a temple is where you actually get in your temple and pray.
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
We wasn’t Muslims. But we had to understand the religions of the world and how they related to the people that we going to talk to. So, 99% we studied the Bible.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
The temple was called Moorish Science Temple of America and Universal Divine Saviors.
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
It sounded cool. Naz said, "The whole reason I came to Miami was to make all of you guys Moorish Americans.” I'm like, “Moorish Americans?"
NEWSREADER:
You may not have heard of the Moorish Nationals. It comes from a Black religious group that's been around for nearly a century. Most of its members obey the law, but not everyone.
REPORTER:
This man was arrested by police in Fayetteville, North Carolina, but his wife claims the arrest was illegal because he is a member of the Moorish Nation.
WOMAN:
He has diplomatic immunity. Why are y’all doing this?
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
He was telling me the Moorish Science Temple is like indigenous people to America and we have sovereign rights. And I didn't understand what none of that s--- was. I was like, "What the f--- is sovereign rights?"
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
What snatch you up is when they tell you you didn't come over here just on no slave ship. In the Moorish Science Temple, it mixed Christianity, Judaism and Islamism, all in one. They are geared to help the Black community.
FBI Audio Surveillance
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
Talk what you be, be about what you talk. Actions speak louder than words.
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
So we sitting down just building on the Bible and talking about making a great change, and can we do it. Can we actually change not just our condition, but the condition of our moms and dads and cousins and community.
FBI Audio Surveillance
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
At the same time, that doesn't mean we're going to give each and everybody here an AK and try and hit up every police station.
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
You can't come into the community if you ain't no strong man. So we came across like, "Yo, we are soldiers. We soldiers for God."
FBI Audio Surveillance
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Attention. Right face. About face. March in place.
FBI Surveillance
ROD VEREEN:
They had uniforms that they would wear. Paramilitary uniforms. Khaki-type shirt, and they would wear the same type of pants. This is the Moorish Star, for the religion. And then, of course, them living in America, they have the American flag. And what was so ironic about this whole thing is that the government tried to paint them as that they were un-American.
FBI Surveillance
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
We brought in experts to tell us, "Hey, what—which, what flavor of Kool-Aid is this? Because we haven't seen this before."
FBI Surveillance
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
Something is not making sense. You had a group of guys that were in Liberty City that wanted to meet somebody from Al Qaeda. Everything had to be followed up because some of the things that fell through the gap, that allowed 9/11 to happen, we could not allow for anything like that to fall through a gap again.
I had never heard of the informant, Abbas al-Saidi.
Abbas al-Saidi
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
Abbas had worked at a convenience store in a medium-to-low-income neighborhood.
RORY McMAHON, Legal investigator for the defense:
He started out as a snitch initially for drugs. New York City has its own intelligence unit, which was focused on terrorism after 9/11. They found this young guy from Yemen who’s pretty street smart to be somebody that they could use in their investigation in New York. At some point in time, there became a threat that they considered to be a threat against him. They encouraged him to move out of New York City, and ultimately he moved down to Miami.
STEFANIE JENNINGS, Abbas' former girlfriend:
I was 18 years old at this time, going on 19. I just kind of was in love with him and did what he told me to do. And I trusted him. And that was one of my biggest mistakes.
We had $3 between the both of us and we got into a really physical argument.
RORY McMAHON:
He beats the crap out of Stefanie one day. Ends up in jail.
STEFANIE JENNINGS:
I had bite marks on my neck, bruises on my face. Even though it was his first domestic violence, he went to jail for a couple months. He kept calling the connections that he had in New York.
RORY McMAHON:
He reaches out to the lieutenant in New York. “Hey, can you help me out? I'm in jail.” Yadda yadda, tells him the story. The guy says, ”Look, I can maybe reach out to the FBI and see if they might have an interest.” And an agent comes and visits him in jail.
STEFANIE JENNINGS:
He told me that when he came out of jail, that the FBI was waiting there to go work. He found the brothers, and that’s all he needed to do the job.
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
I used to go to the corner store and see him all the time. And he was extra friendly. He would try to act Black so much. Smoking weed in the f------ store, blasting Tupac. And I'm like, damn. I was like, "This dude's wild." He was like, “What's up?” I was like, “Man, what's up?” I used to go over to the store all the time buying 'gars and s--- to smoke.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
The weed that he had, the marijuana he had, was a great substance. And it was the kind of substance that I really enjoyed, so my friend that worked there would get it for me.
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
One day he seen me with Naz, he like, "Oh, you know the brother?" And he switched it up. Now he's like all Muslim and he's like, "Yes, brother." He's not even using—he's not smoking, he's not using the N-word, he's not cussing. He's all Muslim now. [Laughs] He's a Muslim now. I'm like, “What happened?”
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
He seemed very religious, but he seemed very street. Like, street hustler. So that's why I related to him, in a sense, because he had game. He had street vibe.
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
One day, his cousin comes down. He like, “Man, ya’ll don’t want to mess with Abbas, man.” And then, we couldn’t get it because we ain’t thinking about no FBI, no police. He like, “Man, ya’ll don’t want to mess with him, man. He dirty.”
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
I remember him saying, “Abbas is working with the police.” And I was like, “What?”
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
He said that Abbas was involved in setting people up with law enforcement and that if he could ever get the chance to, he’ll fabricate a story on me.
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
That’s where we met him.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
The government said that when I met Abbas, I went into his store asking him, “Can you hook me up with Osama bin Laden or any terrorist guy?” That’s what they were saying, and—
DAN REED, Producer:
Is that true?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
No. It never happened.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
What the informant initially said: "I met a guy who has a group. They want to overthrow the United States, they want to meet an Al Qaeda operative and they want to align themselves with Al Qaeda.”
FBI Surveillance
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
One of the critical capabilities that a terrorist organization such as Al Qaeda needs is resources here in the States. If they could acquire the capability of a U.S. citizen or a group of U.S. citizens that are completely off the radar, well, that's a pretty formidable threat.
So, at the time I’m thinking maybe something was miscommunicated, misunderstood. One of the ways we resolve that is reconstitute the conversation and capture it on audio.
FBI Office
Miami
JOHN STEWART:
This is Special Agent John P. Stewart, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Miami Division. Today's date, Oct. 3, 2005. The time, 2:45 p.m.
MINERVA VAZQUEZ:
It was just one of the worst, I guess you could say, things that could have ever happened to us in our life. Because this cry from this man for Narseal to help him turned out actually to be what actually set everything for us in turmoil.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
The turning point between me and Abbas is when I went to the store. I seen ICE there—Immigration Custom Enforcement. Abbas was rampaging back and forth in the store. "Brother, I'm in a lot of trouble right now. They’re trying to deport me."
MINERVA VAZQUEZ:
Of course, being the man that Narseal is, he would want to help at any given opportunity. Narseal had told him, "If you need any help, reach out to us." And of course, he did. And then from there started the nightmare.
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
How you doing, brother? Eid Mubarak.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Just working like crazy.
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
What time exactly you going to be at the temple?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Uh, I can't really say right now because I got so much work ahead of me today.
The phone calls of him calling me just increased. Instead of being at every two weeks, he'll call me, see how I'm doing, it was like every day.
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
Um, I don't know if you want me to come over, or if you want to come over, I’m free right now.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
They just called me on a job and I have to go look at a job at the airport. So I'm going to be leaving in about an hour.
He's saying he needs to meet me right away.
DAN REED:
And what was your response?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
As soon as I get a chance to, because I was very busy with work with the construction company.
FBI Audio Surveillance
MINERVA VAZQUEZ [voicemail]:
Thank you for calling, you've reached Azteca Stucco and Masonry and ACME Organizations Incorporated. Please leave your name and number and someone will return your call as soon as possible.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Azteca Stucco and Masonry. I love the name Azteca because the Aztec ancient Indians were master builders, so I adopted that.
FBI Surveillance
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
Pat was in the construction field. Sunny was in the construction field. Naz was a truck driver. I was doing security and a little side hustle. And we needed to make money. Pat was like, “I have an idea.”
PATRICK ABRAHAM:
We're going to team up, and let's put a small construction company together. We got the skills, we got the determination, we got a willingness and we got—there's the need.
FBI Surveillance
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
And I'm coming home dead tired, and man, I was happy. I was like, "Man, I'm doing something. I'm doing something. Change is coming." It was the first time in my life I was working towards my own business. My own business.
FBI Surveillance
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
I dived all in. I had all my cards in the construction game. Sacrificed weeks without even getting paid. Wake up early and go to sleep late. And there's no money on the table. I'm not getting paid.
FBI Surveillance
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
We had several instances where we were not getting paid, plus the investment we already had made into remodeling the temple. So we was at a financial distraught.
FBI Surveillance
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE [on phone]:
I got a lot of people that don't want to pay me on time and stuff like that. I'm trying to finish this job and I can have your money but, you know—and then it cost me so much money to do all that plumbing work inside.
PATRICK ABRAHAM:
The biggest mistake he was continuously making was using other job money to cover other jobs because he underestimated those jobs. The number one rule in construction: every job pay itself. You don't use money from another job to cover bills in another job. That's bad business.
FBI Surveillance
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE [on phone]:
And I'm kind of like in a jam right now. I have the means of paying, it's just that I'm just waiting to finish this project, and these people pay me.
MINERVA VAZQUEZ:
I just knew it became very overwhelming for him. Oftentimes he would just not sleep. Everybody wanted a better way of living, so he felt the pressure of all these families on him.
FBI Surveillance
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
Test. This is Balan. Today's date is 11/21/2005. Time is 1:38 p.m. This recording includes aka Brother Naz.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Hi.
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
As-salaam alaykum.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Yeah?
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
How you doing, akhi? What's going on?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Hey, what's up, Ab?
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
Alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah. You OK, akhi?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Yeah, hanging in there.
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
I hear you, brother.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I've been working, but I’m going to get off early today. I’ll probably be at the temple around seven o’clock.
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
OK, so you want me to meet you at the temple at seven o’clock, or you want to come over here to the house?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Uh—
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
I mean, I'm in my house. It’s more safe over here. It's quiet.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I’ll be there around seven o'clock, then.
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
All right, brother, thank you very much, man.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Abbas kept begging and begging and begging. He just kept promising, "You just don't realize the opportunity that I can have for you. We're going to do something really, really, really great together financially. I could really help you guys, if you just trust me just a little bit, just to come by and talk.”
Abbas’ Apartment
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
So it wasn’t, "Let’s see how we can build a mouse trap. Put a big piece of cheese on there." Listen, I don’t even know if this is a mouse. And if it is a mouse, I don’t even know if this mouse wants any cheese. So we looked at Batiste and said, "He doesn’t look like—I don’t know. He’s saying these things that a mouse would say, but let’s give him another shot." And then we had nowhere else to go but to put the piece of cheese on the trap.
FBI Surveillance
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
When you're sending an informant into a meeting, you're not giving them a script. You're giving them an outline, with some objectives to achieve. Revisit this conversation. Let Batiste explain in his own words what it is that he was asking Abbas for assistance in. The outline for that was in the form of Abbas telling Narseal Batiste, "Remember you told me you wanted to meet an Al Qaeda guy? Well, I got the guy."
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Abbas has a friend of his that he wants me to meet who was a financial guy, a rich guy, this, that and the other. And that he would help back us at whatever we needed. But we need to follow his direction in this.
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
So he wants us to make sure that we’re really good Muslims? He’s like, “Yeah, you've got to be really good, good Muslim men. And no Christianity, so go buy some Qurans.” I'm like, uh-huh.
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
Abbas told Naz he has a uncle coming down who's a philanthropist and he love people who's helping the community. That's what Abbas must have repeated a thousand times: "Man, my uncle like to help people who help people. Don't worry about nothing. He's—that's what he do."
PATRICK ABRAHAM:
"I'm going to talk to my uncle. My uncle going to help you. We going to get some money and we all going—we're all going to make some money."
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
We wanted the money. We wanted the funds. Because we—we were f------ up bad. Nobody had the knowledge of how to run a business, so we was f------ up what we was doing.
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
This is Balan. The date is 11/21/2005. The time is 7:58 p.m.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Akhi!
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
Akhi! How you doing, man? That’s Brother Naz, huh?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
I’m waiting for you, man. How you doing? What’s going on?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Rock on, brother, rock on!
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
All right, all right. I just don’t want to be missing anything because I’m praying alone and I don’t like it, man. I’m waiting for you for isha.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Oh, inshallah. We’re going to be there in just a little bit.
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
OK, inshallah, akhi.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Inshallah, man, salaam alaykum.
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
Mashallah.
The time is 7:59 p.m. This recording is ended.
FBI Surveillance
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Akhi.
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
Akhi, brother. As-salaam alaykum. What’s going on, man?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Good to you see, man. How're you? What’s going on?
When we get there, we're still in our work clothes, because we just left the job—me and Patrick Abraham.
PATRICK ABRAHAM:
Oh, man.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Oh, hamdulillah.
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
Alhamdullilah, brother.
PATRICK ABRAHAM:
Oh, man! Give me that!
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
We were just kind of like clowning around.
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
All for you, brother.
PATRICK ABRAHAM:
Oh, man!
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Just laughing and talking about the situation that Abbas was talking to us about.
FBI Surveillance
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
So what happened to the temple? You fix it up, brother?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
No, not yet.
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
Akhi.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I'm waiting on getting my money.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
Our intention from the beginning was to put this to bed. He wants to meet Al Qaeda? OK, tell him you got a guy, see what he says. The expected response would be, "What are you talking about? I never said—I don't remember ever saying that."
FBI Audio Surveillance
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
Hey, brother, you remember the guy I told you about?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Which one?
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
I told you somebody's supposed to be coming over.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Yeah, what happened to him?
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
Still coming over. I was wondering, man, I'm not sure what day yet. They was asking me if I was able to send somebody to get him from the airport.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
So what about this guy? I mean, what is he?
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
He's a good mujahid.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
So does he know bin Laden?
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
I don't know, brother. Believe me, I don't know.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
It's possible?
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
It's possible for anybody that I work with to get to know Osama bin Laden.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
He could have said, "Hey, listen, I was a little out of my lane. I was off my meds and I don't know what you're talking about." And then we would have happily have closed that investigation, because it wasn't like we were looking for work.
FBI Audio Surveillance
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
Hey, brother, would you pick him up from the airport?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I would.
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
All right, brother. Thanks. I'm going to let him know.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I thought Abbas was an avenue to relinquish my financial difficulty. If I can just get the money, I can pay these immediate bills. That was the only thing that kept driving me: that if I get that one handful of money, then it’s over with.
FBI Audio Surveillance
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Realistically speaking, one dollar's good enough for me, because that's one dollar I don't have to push forward on the mission. But I know one thing: Once I get at least $30,000 to $40,000 on this mission, it is over.
I had no belief into fighting any jihad, holy war or anything that's going on in the Middle East. And even though it was against my morals and values, I felt like if I can go through it and just get the money, then all of that would be washed away.
FBI Audio Surveillance
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
We need to be organized. We have to have the plan ready. We need this amount of money. This amount of this. But if we don't come up with no plan, how can we get support?
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
“Well, Tony, we got the tape."
"OK, so what are we doing?"
"Well, he asked him: Hey, you remember when you wanted to meet the Al Qae—and he said, yeah."
“So what are we doing now?”
“OK. Well, you're going to have to put somebody that's going to pretend to be Al Qaeda in front of him.”
ELIE ASSAAD:
My name is Elie Assaad. Former undercover operative for United States government.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
We identified an informant that had been previously used in another FBI investigation in Miami.
RORY McMAHON:
So they needed to get somebody else, a little bit stronger, little bit more forceful. So they bring in the closer. The closer is Elie Assaad. And Elie Assaad was a professional informant. He used to refer to himself to his friends as Tony Montana from Scarface, you know? The evil character.
Interviewed by Al-Jazeera (2014)
ELIE ASSAAD:
Are we ready?
INTERVIEWER:
You ready?
CAMERAPERSON:
Yeah, ready.
INTERVIEWER:
Um—
ELIE ASSAAD:
Hold on, one second.
INTERVIEWER:
Sure.
ELIE ASSAAD:
OK.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
When we initially got the information, we're looking at this and we're like, “Do we think that these guys really want to meet somebody from Al Qaeda?” Common sense sort of suggested probably not, but let's see where it goes. And so we decided on using him because we did not expect for it to go beyond that first meeting.
ELIE ASSAAD:
I'm good. I never lost a case. I never lost a case, all these years, even sometimes when they have already ongoing cases, where they feel they're going to lose it, and they bring me to jump in and put it back on track.
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
Abbas is talking about Elie Assaad, but he's using his name as "Uncle." Yeah, that's his name. Elie Assaad. No good motherf-----.
December 2005
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
We rented a hotel room. The Hilton, downtown Miami. Again we set up surveillance so we could capture the meeting in video and audio.
FBI Surveillance
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
I'm in a room close by, where we can monitor the meeting. We also have a surveillance unit outside of the hotel.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Abbas continued to call us and call us until Elie Assaad came, and he called me all that day to go meet him. He initially promised me around 20 grand or whatever. He said, “I'll have it for you. I just need you to meet him.”
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
The surveillance team says, "You’re not going to believe this, but your subject is walking down Biscayne Boulevard in a white robe and a cane that's six feet tall, looking like Moses." I got on the radio and I said, "Are you sure it's our subject?" And they're like, "It's your guy.” I look at our team in the room and I'm like, "What's going on?"
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Room 612. I knocked on the door. Assaad opened up the door and he says, "Come on in, brother, let's talk."
FBI Surveillance
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
So I was at the airport there and I missed you.
I figured I could be slick enough to say what I had to say in there and just get that money and break off.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
Batiste doesn’t blink. He could have said, “Listen, I was just joking, I'm going to a Halloween party,” and fine.
FBI Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
So brother—what?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Brother Nazareth.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Nazareth?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Yes, sir.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Nazareth. You don’t eat meat, right?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
No, sir.
ELIE ASSAAD:
It’s chicken parmigiana.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
That’s still the same thing.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Good.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
It has blood in it.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
Elie Assaad. He had somewhat of an ego, if you will.
FBI Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
Listen to me, and it's very important. You don't play with me.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I don't play with nobody.
ELIE ASSAAD:
No, you don't tell me, "Let's play." Don't test me. You are not capable of testing me.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
I think he sort of felt he needed to guide this conversation more affirmatively, and at times I think he may overdo it.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Tell me, what's going on with you? What do you want from me? You're not even capable of testing me. You don't know who I am. You don't know who I am and what I'm capable of. You don't know. I'm capable of many things. Many things. So it's your choice. You tell me what's going on, what you want from me now.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I was never good at being no type of scam artist. This is the first time in my life I'm ever really trying to run a scam.
FBI Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
What do you want from me?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I’m exhausted, financially.
ELIE ASSAAD:
OK.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
In everything I am trying to do. We have nothing. And the little bit that I have, I took it to fix the mosque. The men put their heart in everything they do. But they don’t have boots. They don’t have boots.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Don’t have boots?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
No, sir.
ELIE ASSAAD:
They don’t have, what more?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Uniforms.
ELIE ASSAAD:
No what?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Uniforms.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Uniforms. So, first point. First point, you want boots and uniforms?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Yes, sir.
ELIE ASSAAD:
What else?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
We need artillery.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Like what? Give me a list of what you want. Give me all the list of what you want. Don't later on tell me, "I missed something." I want everything on the list.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
And he was like, "All right, so what do you need?" I knew that I had to make something up right then and there. Of course, I was not prepared for any kind of list. I didn’t bring any kind of list, because this was just something I was just brainstorming on. So I wrote a whole bunch of crazy things down on the list. I needed knee-high boots—things that didn't make sense.
FBI Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
Boots, knee-high hiking boots. Sizes, sizes. This what I'm asking you. Sizes.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Yes, I put guns on there. I couldn't name them. He kept asking me the name for them. I didn't know any name of guns, because I never owned a gun.
FBI Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
Automatic hand pilot? What do you mean, automatic hand pilot? This I don’t understand.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Machine gun hand pistols.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Huh?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Hand pistol machine guns.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Pistols? Machine guns. Pistols or machine guns? Two different things.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
They make them hand pistols. They make pistol machine guns. They're like pistols, but they're also machine guns.
The list that he took he tore up several times, and eventually there was a list that was made. He was like, "I’ll go back and talk to Abbas about everything and we’ll work on getting the money to you."
I left the room. I felt a lot of fear. I felt like a big cavity was inside my chest. Empty.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
We’re in the room and we're like, "OK, well, what happens now?" So we went back to the bullpen and sat down and says, “OK, guys it’s—let’s whiteboard this. What are we going to do?” OK. We could go knock on Batiste’s door and say, “Hey, listen, we—you met with somebody who said they were with Al Qaeda. Now, how serious are you, because if you’re not, OK, you need to knock it off.” They could just go off and not do anything for another year or two years or three years. There aren’t enough resources to commit to that type of monitoring. So we wanted to find out how committed Batiste was to what he had told Elie Assaad.
FBI Audio Surveillance
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
Believe me, brother, I'm not trying to show you your job.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
No, no, no, I'm open to everything.
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
I'm just trying to help.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
This whole thing was way beyond me. The rhetoric and the talk and the relationship with Abbas just went way out of control.
FBI Surveillance
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
Training is a word that is being used for everything.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
What?
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
Training to use a bomb and training how to do push-ups is not the same thing. [Laughs]
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Exactly.
My hustle wasn't even talking about terrorists at the very beginning. I was slowly wielded into that with Abbas.
FBI Surveillance
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
Whatever we're using, we need to speak about it now, find it now. Find all the accessories we need.
People, places, missions.
STEFANIE JENNINGS:
He really set these guys up. There’s really no other way for me to put it. Abbas saw from working in the store that these men didn’t have a lot of money, and he also played on that, that they were poor.
FBI Surveillance
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
I’m going to try to get you some money, as much as I can, even if it's pocket change for a while.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
That's fine. Whatever you can do, Ab. Whatever Allah puts in your hands. [inaudible] And that’s the main thing.
STEFANIE JENNINGS:
They just kept getting pushed forward and forward and forward by Abbas, and Abbas is putting all these ideas in their head. It was like a big joke to him at home. It was—all he could do was laugh about it. He thought it was hilarious. He was like, “I can’t believe they think I’m really Al Qaeda.” It didn’t matter if that’s how he was going to get his money, if that’s how the FBI was going to pay him.
FBI Surveillance
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
Mujahideen, brother, whatever they think of in heaven, they see it right in front of them. Whatever comes up to your mind, you see it right there. If you think about women, you see women. If you think about honey, you've got rivers of honey. Alcohol, there's rivers of alcohol.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
In the informant world, are they paid? Of course they’re paid. They got paid expenses. It wasn't like, "Hey, listen, if you get a conviction, you're going to get $100,000." That's not how we operate.
FBI Surveillance
ABBAS AL-SAIDI:
That's for the mujahideen—only for the mujahid. That's what Allah grants the mujahid. If you die for Allah, that's what's there for you and it's in the Quran.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Wow.
I finally get a call from Abbas telling me, “Look, Assaad definitely wants to meet with you. He's got the money, you just have to pick him up.”
FBI Surveillance
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
He told me that, “If you going to get the money, you've got to make it sound for real. Talk big, like you going to blow something up.” He said, “If you say that, they're going to come through.”
I was high off of marijuana one time when we was riding in the back seat of a car, and he whispered over to me, says, "You got anything in mind you could say big? You're from Chicago, you should be able to come up with something." And I thought in my mind, “Well, the Sears Tower. I guess I could blow that up. How would that sound?" And he cracked up laughing and he says, "That would be great."
Chicago
FBI Audio Surveillance
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Chicago has the Sears Tower.
ELIE ASSAAD:
I heard it's the tallest building in the world.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Exactly. Downtown Chicago can fall [snaps] fast.
ELIE ASSAAD:
[Laughs] You’re very smart.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
That was the basis motivation of it. The whole thing was about who could scam who out of the money.
DAN REED:
Did you think that that could go wrong for you?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Yes. Did I linger on that thought? No.
FBI Audio Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
What you are saying right now in this moment not the United States will remember. The whole world will remember for a million years coming.
January 2006
FBI Audio Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
I'm Al Qaeda. Have you heard of Al Qaeda? I hope you heard.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Who's Al Qaeda connected to? Is that Osama bin Laden, or—?
ELIE ASSAAD:
Exactly.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I told you I admire Osama bin Laden. Now the only thing, like I did from the very beginning, is ask you for your help, and it has to be financial. It has to be with money.
ELIE ASSAAD:
To ask them for money I need to give them something solid.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Like I said, I don't know what it's going to take for you to get that first 50,000.
ELIE ASSAAD:
OK, brother, let me tell you something: To let them approve the 50 grand, they have to see something solid.
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
He's going to give you money. What the f--- you think the money's for? Terrorism. He wants you to do an act, just like a murder for hire. What's present in our mind is, when you give it to me, I'm not killing nobody. This is mine, f--- you. What you going to do? Because if you're really that powerful, you would have had your own crew right here. You ain't s---. You're just a rich motherf----- that is going to give the money to us and then you're going to disappear.
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
Whoa, man, this is terrorism. It never popped in our mind like, yo, this is something serious. It's like these two f------ fake guys playing some g--damn game. Batiste fighting for control over some damn donations and it was—it all made me sick.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
I want to prove these guys didn’t want to do this. I want to prove that this conversation that the informant may have misquoted didn’t happen, and this is what it is. But that’s not what happened. Every time I thought we were going to get off the highway, we hit another mile marker.
FBI Surveillance
February 2006
ELIE ASSAAD:
He left yesterday? I was watching the basketball.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Come on, tell me, what do you do that's bad? You don't drink.
Elie Assaad’s Apartment
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
You smoke marijuana?
FBI Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
Marijuana? [Laughter] You smoke?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I smoke marijuana sometimes.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Sometimes, yes?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I was taking a lot of marijuana substance, at least an ounce every two days, and it had me living in a world of fear. And fear was pulling all of this into a detrimental path with myself, as far as trusting my own judgment of what’s right and wrong. In terms of the scam, of going further or not.
FBI Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
Our brother, Osama bin Laden, when he spoke again about United States and he tells them one of the plans, one of his tasks, was one of yours.
PATRICK ABRAHAM:
Whenever I—my attention fell on him, it's like, "Yeah, he talking crazy." And they're doing all of that just to get the—convince the guy to give you some money.
FBI Surveillance
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
We're going to launch a full ground war.
ELIE ASSAAD:
What?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
We're going to have a full ground war.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Ground?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Yes.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Ground war? What does that mean?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
That means that we're going to kill all the devils we can.
I was just trying to get into Assaad's head, say what would make him happy. Because he kept looking at me like, "I need more. Say something more."
FBI Surveillance
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Believe it or not we need horses.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Horses? Horses? Why?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Because you got to, you got to—that’s Chicago there, ain’t it?
PATRICK ABRAHAM:
This guy just made a crazy-ass statement and then less than 10 second later he’s in a basketball game. The TV faced us. So a lot of the time you see me there, I’m—[laughs] I’m looking—I’m watching the game.
FBI Surveillance
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
This is the Sears Tower.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Take this, take this. Which one?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
OK, this is the big one, right?
ELIE ASSAAD:
This is the Sears Tower?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
There are other buildings close to it.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Like, this close?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Now what I plan on doing is attacking here, here, here and here.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Attack? But you're not attacking here?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
With explosives. I'm going to have some here in the center.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Oh, you'll have in the center and around it?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Underground.
ELIE ASSAAD:
So what would happen?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
They will all explode at one time.
I wasn't feeling good about what I was saying. But at the time, I felt like I had to make up this story one more time for this guy. So I was just constantly just flipping through different pictures in my mind that I seen on the media.
FBI Surveillance
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Now when this collapses, the water pushes in here like this. It's going come over.
I grabbed that from just "end of the world" type of movies. Because a lot of that was going on at the time. Tidal waves type of movies.
FBI Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
There will be no survivors?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
No. We'll make sure of that. If we see them surviving, we will shoot them.
I'm not going to do anything. I'm just talking a whole bunch of crap here. And I'm high.
FBI Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
So you're speaking about how many people? Like a hundred thousand?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Thousands.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Hundred thousand?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Close to a million. Close to a million.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
If Batiste is having these conversations with somebody he believes is from Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda would say, “OK, maybe we should target the Sears Tower. And by the way, you think we should, as the survivors run out, shoot them? We didn't even think of that. Write that down.”
FBI Surveillance
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I know for a fact it can be just as good or greater than 9/11. Because of this, millions of people will probably die. I just want enough money to do it. [Laughs]
PATRICK ABRAHAM:
Dude. You really have to do all of that? Did you have to really do all that back-and-forth with the guy? "Yeah, he going to get it. He'll get the money. I’m going to get the money." I’m like, "All right, whatever, man."
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I was sick of it. Matter of fact, I remember when I went home, I got sick somehow or another. I was doing a lot of vomiting.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
It's like, OK, let's say he is crazy. That's a dangerous dialogue. We never expected, again, to get to where we ended up because we thought at some point he would say, "Look, this is what I'm—this is all a charade."
Washington, D.C.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
Director Mueller was being briefed daily. And we knew that this was included in his presidential briefs.
That brief is: Look, there's a group of kids in Miami-Dade that formed an organization and want to align themselves with Al Qaeda to start a war in the United States.
FBI Surveillance
JOHN PISTOLE:
The prosecutors wanted more overt acts. So anytime there's a conspiracy involved, you have to have overt acts in furtherance of that conspiracy.
FBI Surveillance
JOHN PISTOLE:
Anything that a prosecutor could use as evidence to convince a judge or jury that these people were serious.
JACKIE ARANGO, Federal prosecutor (1995-2011):
A conversation is an act. So you don't need to pick up a gun or let off a bomb or make a bomb for it to be an overt act. I think the idea came from the FBI through CIA, and the idea was to have some sort of formal allegiance, some pledge to Al Qaeda, to see if they went forward with it.
FBI Surveillance
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
The idea was introduced to further test their commitment to their interest in aligning with Al Qaeda by saying, “Well, look, you have to take an oath of loyalty.”
Liberty City
Miami
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Assaad came by the temple. He says, “The reason why I hold back the money from you is because you don't have a commitment.” I said, "Well, what do you mean?" He says, "We've got to have some type of commitment between us." And he didn't call it an oath or any swearing allegiance to any organization or anything. He says, "It's just a commitment." So he says, "Well, we have to meet and we have to discuss this commitment some more and then we can proceed further."
March 2006
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I drove to his location and he got in the car and he pulled out this piece of paper and he says, "This is the commitment or the oath that I need you to read."
FBI Audio Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
You repeat after me because you are the leader of the group, and after, we do it with the brothers.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Is it the same thing as this?
ELIE ASSAAD:
Yeah, but I have to read and you have to repeat. "God's pledge is upon me and so is his compact." Repeat after me.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
Listen, if you're not 100% on board with this, here's your chance to get out. Here's your chance to get out.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
And so eventually I read it.
FBI Audio Surveillance
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Allah's pledge is upon me.
ELIE ASSAAD:
No. You have to repeat exactly. You have to repeat.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
But I can't say "Allah"?
ELIE ASSAAD:
Yeah, but this is for English version.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Of course.
ELIE ASSAAD:
OK.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
God's pledge is upon me.
I felt like it was stupid. I didn't feel like it was a real Al Qaeda oath. Usually when somebody wants you to swear allegiance to a dangerous organization, it's going to be some type of dramatic thing. They ain't going to ask you to read from no piece of paper. They're going to probably do something crazy to you or have you do something crazy.
DAN REED:
Were you not worried that this could all catch up with you very quickly?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Of course I was worried.
DAN REED:
And yet—
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Yet I thought I could still make this deal go through.
FBI Audio Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
"And to the directive of Al Qaeda."
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
So that means Al Qaeda will be over us?
ELIE ASSAAD:
No, no, no, no, it's an alliance.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
OK, can I say "an alliance"?
ELIE ASSAAD:
Yeah, you can say "and to the directive and alliance of Al Qaeda."
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
And to the directive and alliance of Al Qaeda.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Welcome, Brother Naz, to Al Qaeda.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
The direction that was given was if Batiste takes the oath, then you tell him that all of the members of his organization have to take the oath. So this was already preplanned.
FBI Audio Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
So tomorrow with the brothers to present our commitment, our agreement?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Yeah, well, let's go ahead and get it out the way.
I felt like I was getting deeper into a trap, that I might not be able to get myself out of this trap if I play this game even further.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
The approach that we took was to create a platform to capture conversations with the group. That particular area, where their warehouse was, was incredibly difficult to surveil. It was a high drug trafficking area. So we looked at telling Batiste, “Hey, listen, one of the things we can do is we could get you a better training facility.”
The idea came up: renting a warehouse, prewiring it so we could capture audio and video, then take that warehouse and identify three other warehouses and tell Batiste, "Hey, listen, let's go look at some warehouses."
FBI Audio Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
We're going to Biscayne and 63rd St.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Biscayne and 63rd.
ELIE ASSAAD:
And you have to go west on 63rd. Let me get the address right.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I was told by Assaad, “I got a warehouse. And we need to go look at one. You can pick out any one and we'll just give it to you. And that would be a part of the financial help that we'll give you.”
FBI Audio Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
And let me give you the other address also.
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
OK.
ELIE ASSAAD:
6300 Northeast 4th Court.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
I mean, this isn't rocket science. We got a really nice warehouse, it's a Bentley of warehouses, and then two other warehouses that you wouldn't even want to burn for insurance money. The question is posed to Batiste: “Which warehouse do you want?”
FBI Audio Surveillance
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
The 6300 one is nice. The 6300 one I've seen of the two I like.
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
We picked the one the FBI wanted us to pick. How much control is—that's why I'm tripping. The one we pick—we pick—is the one they had set up that they wanted us to pick so they'll—this is how so much of it was over our head. They knew how to make us pick what they wanted us to pick.
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
There was a boat in there. There was a van in there. They both had keys, both had deeds in them. It was all ours. There was a refrigerator filled with fish and all type of seafood. Like, 10 pounds of shrimp. I was like, “Wow. Somebody just bought this.” It was fresh.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
We flip the switch. We got a Title III wiretap intercept. OK, let's see what happens.
FBI Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
I told you, "You want it?" OK, this is yours.
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
It was huge, so we had places for bunks, places to work out, places to store our equipment. It was an office in the front. So even for us it was like, "Whoa, this would be a step up."
ELIE ASSAAD:
It's a done deal. Tomorrow the key will be with us.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Al hamdulillah.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Congratulations, brother. [Laughter] Congratulations for all the brothers. For all the brothers. Congratulations. So we can bring all the brothers—if we get the key in the morning, we can bring the brothers in the night?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Yeah. Yeah, we'll come in the night.
ELIE ASSAAD:
In the night, all of us? You remember about the pledge?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Yeah.
DAN REED:
Did you talk to the brothers about this?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
In part. In part.
DAN REED:
Do you feel you were being honest with your brothers at this point?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
In terms of holding back information?
DAN REED:
Yeah.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Yeah, I held back information.
DAN REED:
Why?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I felt like they would have judged the situation to be not worth it and we could lose out on an opportunity that we've already worked ourselves into.
FBI Surveillance
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Hey, it's happening now.
ELIE ASSAAD:
You’re happy?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I'm happy.
ELIE ASSAAD:
That's it. No more rent, my friend, no more. Take it. “Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do when they come for you?”
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
You been watching Cops, huh?
ELIE ASSAAD:
This song is very famous around the world.
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
Naz was telling us already that, “Don't worry about what this guy is saying. It's just all bulls---.” Because before then, we came from a construction site. Before we went in here that day, we came off of doing a job.
DAN REED:
But in your mind, who was this guy Assaad?
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
I didn't give a f--- what he was.
DAN REED:
Really?
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
I really didn't. That's what I'm trying to get you to understand. I don't give a f---. We grew up from nothing. We grew up from watching people that we love die, get shot in the street. We didn’t grow up where everybody talk their way out of trouble. We grew up everybody got killed or got sent to jail. So it's like, our way of life was, if he didn't—if we didn't see him display this type of violence, then he's not on it. He's not. He's just talking. And he's full of s---.
FBI Audio Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
Today is March 16, 2006. Time is 9:35 p.m. It’s showtime.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
The scenario was Batiste would bring them in, and each one would have to take the oath. Not as a group. Again, the reason for that is maybe somebody is in that group and they're not saying anything, but they're like, "I draw the line here."
FBI Audio Surveillance
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
The first thing is that we're all very grateful for all the help and support that's coming through you.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Allahu akbar. Allahu akbar.
FBI Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
So here I am, I complete my promise to you.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Yes, sir.
ELIE ASSAAD:
And from now, this step is not my step anymore. It's your step.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I told them that he had some silly commitment that he was asking us to read, but don't take it serious.
LYGLENSON “LEVI” LEMORIN:
Batiste already spoke to us, says no matter what's going on, he's just trying to get some money to just—don't say nothing and just back him up.
FBI Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
OK.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Explain it to the brothers.
ELIE ASSAAD:
I will explain it to them. And I will—
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
And I can't really tell you detail of how it transferred to the whole oath thing. I just know it happened. Because during this whole time, I'm getting high like a motherf-----.
FBI Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
This Al Qaeda pledge. For Al Qaeda pledge. I am representing the sheikh Osama bin Laden. "God's pledge is upon me and so is his compact. And that I will be a soldier of the Islamic soldiers until God's word is exalted. And I commit myself along my brothers’ path on the road of jihad." You understand me, all of you? Was clear? Now you will repeat after me.
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
One second.
When he says that, I looked towards Batiste, I was like, "Batiste, is this cool? This all right, man?"
FBI Surveillance
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
This all right?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Yeah, brother. Could you read it to them first, Brother Mohammed?
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
We like gritting our teeth and we like—we put our hands up. We backing up our man.
FBI Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
When I say "to commit myself," each one has to say his name. Let's start with you. To commit myself.
LYGLENSON “LEVI” LEMORIN:
To commit myself, Levi El.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Now your turn. To commit myself.
PATRICK ABRAHAM:
[Laughs] That's crazy, man.
FBI Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
To commit myself.
PATRICK ABRAHAM:
To commit myself, Brother Patrick Abraham.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Meanwhile, I was in the background just giving the brothers the eye wink for assurance. This is just— this ain't real, this is just a game.
FBI Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
To commit myself.
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
To commit myself, Prince Augustin.
ELIE ASSAAD:
To commit myself.
MALE SPEAKER:
To commit myself, [inaudible].
ELIE ASSAAD:
To commit myself.
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
To commit myself, Prince Sunny El.
ELIE ASSAAD:
OK.
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
We barely had time to even think and—who give oaths to Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda? That s--- is for the movies. This is what we see on TV. It's not—even if it was real, it wasn't real. Because it doesn't happen where we come from.
FBI Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
To the path of holy war.
GROUP [in unison]:
To the path of holy war.
ELIE ASSAAD:
And to the directive of Al Qaeda.
GROUP [in unison]:
And to the directive of Al Qaeda.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Welcome, brother. Welcome, brother.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
Once everyone took the oath, Elie Assaad was instructed to introduce a plot by Al Qaeda to blow up five FBI offices, Miami being one of them. And that Al Qaeda would like some assistance in doing reconnaissance and surveillance and other things. And then provide a video camera.
FBI Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
The sheikh is preparing for a hit for five buildings in United States: Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Miami. We are taking down the five FBI buildings. But he asked me if I can tape it, tape the building. I don't know where the buildings are. So he asked me if I can send him back the videotape.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
You mean we going to have to tape it, or we have to do the—
ELIE ASSAAD:
Just tape it. We need to tape it only.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
The one right here in Miami?
ELIE ASSAAD:
In Miami. I have something for you.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I hope it’s got a zoom lens on it.
PATRICK ABRAHAM:
Even though it didn't make sense to me, I was more focused on Batiste. That moment I felt betrayed. I felt betrayed. And honestly, that was the one time I should not have hold my composure, because that time I really wanted to punch him in the face.
LYGLENSON “LEVI” LEMORIN:
I'm thinking, this straight bull crap. This straight bull crap.
FBI Surveillance
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Now when I give you these video tapes, you're going to have to be very careful with those tapes.
LYGLENSON “LEVI” LEMORIN:
I felt really like Batiste crossed the line. So after everything finished happening, I took my wife, my kids, I took my kids out of school, rented a car and left.
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
That soiled us to a point where I don't know if we would have—we was able to come back from that night, because we started to lose respect for not just ourselves, but for Batiste and for what we was doing, and—it was ugly. It was ugly.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
They were very disappointed in themselves, as well as disappointed in me. That all this had to happen from just one single thought of "what about if we can scam money out of these people." It was just a nasty deal, a nasty scam that nobody really liked.
Narseal’s Camera Footage
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Assaad had rented a van for us because I told him I didn't have any transportation or anything. I figured that if I just ride around with a camera in my hand and then say it’s all I’m going to do, that would satisfy, for us, the end of my hustle and my scam.
Narseal’s Camera Footage
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
Batiste, he like, “Man, these pictures right here, you can get these pictures online. We going to just give it to him and this the last bit we have to ever do to deal with this guy. This is it. It’s over.”
Narseal’s Camera Footage
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
Assaad said, “If you do this one more project for me, take the picture, I'll give you the money.” It was 50,000, too.
DAN REED:
Do you know why he wanted pictures of those buildings?
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
Oh, yeah. He wanted to blow them up. Oh, yeah. That was no secret.
DAN REED:
Did that bother you?
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
No and yeah, because I didn't believe it. I didn’t believe it.
Narseal’s Camera Footage
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
You know, I'm not scared as thinking there's a real terrorist group really want some pictures of federal buildings. I'm not scared of that because this guy is not no f------ terrorist.
Narseal’s Camera Footage
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
Assaad, I was trying to put him together. Why is he doing this? My mind can't see that it's the feds that's pulling the strings. I can’t imagine a government agency put this together.
Narseal’s Camera Footage
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
They take footage of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami, and I believe they took footage of the Miami Police Department. We had only asked for reconnaissance on the FBI office. And then they provided that video footage to Assaad.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Brother, the problem is we're having a problem. It's not clear.
FBI Surveillance
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Right. Right.
ELIE ASSAAD:
You're doing a good job. Good job, but it's like—you're not stopping it, because when you stop it, when you stop it, it's not getting clearly the picture.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
They could have gone to Walmart and took a picture of the back. So they could have done a number of things, even at that point in the investigation. But they didn't. What they did was they gave who they thought to be an Al Qaeda operative exactly what he had asked for.
FBI Surveillance
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
What I want you to understand, I can't get a frozen shot with the video camera.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Not a frozen shot. It's like, let it roll of the building for a couple seconds.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
Batiste is mentally competent to represent a threat that would be of interest to somebody like Al Qaeda or ISIS. They'd love to identify people like this.
FBI Surveillance
ELIE ASSAAD:
So what, what is—what's this?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Yeah, see, that's the security right there. That’s where they usually stand at. That’s the guard post right here.
ELIE ASSAAD:
OK.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
All the way on the other side they got guys cruising down the street. They got guys walking on that street.
ELIE ASSAAD:
OK.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
They have at least five federal agents.
ELIE ASSAAD:
Five federal agents.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
And I'm not suggesting that they're going to recruit him to put a backpack filled with explosives and walk into a mall. The fact that he's willing to assist in a conspiracy to blow up a building in the United States is no less dangerous. Whether that’s acquiring SIM cards or checking out library books. Stealing a car. On its own it doesn't seem like much, but if the ultimate purpose is to conduct a terrorist attack, well then, yeah, I think he does represent a threat.
FBI Surveillance
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
So the decision was made that we were going to indict Batiste, the other six members of his group and arrest them. One of the things that they did to earn a living was they did stucco for buildings. And so we called a contact that has several rental properties in Miami and says, “Would you call these guys and see if you could hire them to do some stucco work for you?”
My understanding is they were actually on ladders when they were arrested by the SWAT team.
June 2006
NEWSREADER:
Breaking news out of Miami: anti-terrorism raids by the FBI as well as state and local police. Seven people right now are under arrest.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I had Minerva there. I had my daughter, Narcassia, and my son Prince. And they told me and my family to get on the ground. They all—they held machine guns to my kids’ and my wife's head and my head.
MINERVA VAZQUEZ:
I was scared for my life, or they would shoot us. They had guns drawn at us, pointing at my children. I thought it was just something—a ticket he hadn’t paid or maybe a violation he had made somewhere.
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
It was like 50 agents. They swarmed around me real quick. They were like, "Get on the ground! Get on the f------ ground! Get on the f------ ground!" I said, "S---." I'm thinking everything I did back in the day. I'm like, "Damn, they caught up with me." And then the oath and then the pictures and everything flashed in my mind, I'm like, "It was a setup."
NEWSREADER:
Breaking news tonight: terror-related arrest in Miami.
NEWSREADER:
FBI agents swoop in on a Liberty City neighborhood to foil an alleged plot to commit terror acts in Miami and Chicago.
FRANCES BATISTE BRAUD:
I see my brother on television, saying he's a terrorist.
NEWSREADER:
Investigators say one of the seven, Narseal Batiste, was the ringleader.
FRANCES BATISTE BRAUD:
"Ringleader"? I said, “A ringleader?” Oh, my God. I said, "This boy can't even put cows in the pasture, how is he a ringleader?" I'm like, this is no way—and I mean, I was so hurt. I just fell to my knees and I started crying because I'm like, "This is not true. This is not my brother."
NEWSREADER:
We now go back to Larry King’s exclusive interview with the director of the FBI, Robert Mueller.
LARRY KING:
Federal agents are conducting a terrorism-related investigation in Liberty City—that's an area of the city of Miami. What can you tell us?
ROBERT MUELLER:
I can tell you we do have an ongoing operation in Miami. We are conducting a number of arrests and searches.
LARRY KING:
Big concern?
ROBERT MUELLER:
Whenever we undertake an operation like this, we would not do it without the approval of a judge. We've got search warrants and arrest warrants and the like, and so, yes, it's a concern.
Washington, D.C.
ALBERTO GONZALES, United States Attorney General (2005-2007):
Good morning. I'm joined today by FBI Deputy Director John Pistole and Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher of the Criminal Division.
The fact that there was a press conference where the attorney general speaks, it’s a pretty big deal for the Department of Justice.
Seven men were arrested yesterday in Miami on charges of conspiring to support the Al Qaeda terrorist organization by planning attacks on numerous targets, including bombing the Sears Tower in Chicago.
Listen, we’re going to go after people that engage in any kind of contact that’s similar to this. I think that’s a very powerful message, a very powerful tool: that the attorney general is using the stick of the Department of Justice to try to discourage this kind of behavior from happening again.
These individuals wished to wage a, quote, “full ground war against the United States.”
BOB NORMAN, Reporter, Broward Palm Beach New Times (1998-2011):
The ridiculousness of that opening announcement by Gonzales is astounding. I think I wrote that: “Wage a ground war against the United States? This group couldn’t wage a ground war against a jar of peppercorns.”
TREVOR AARONSON, Reporter, Miami New Times (2003-2006):
It was clear that from the highest levels of the Department of Justice, that this prosecution had been approved and was being touted as a success of the government's counterterrorism program. I think that what struck everyone was that Alberto Gonzales seemed to know very little about the specifics of this case.
REPORTER:
Did any of the men have any actual contact with any members of Al Qaeda that you know of?
ALBERTO GONZALES:
Any—?
JOHN PISTOLE, Deputy Director, FBI (2004-2010):
No.
ALBERTO GONZALES:
Yeah. The answer to that is no.
JAY WEAVER, Federal courts reporter, Miami Herald:
They had no money. They had no weapons. They weren’t even Islamic extremists. Ultimately we realized it was a sting operation. The way this all unfolded seemed very improbable, very forced, and it really looked like the FBI had led these men down the primrose path.
REPORTER:
Was there anything against the Sears Tower except this one apparent mention of the Sears Tower? It doesn't look like they ever took pictures, or did any of—?
JOHN PISTOLE:
One of the individuals was familiar with the Sears Tower, had worked in Chicago and had been there, so was familiar with the tower.
I wanted to distinguish this for the media, because one of my concerns was that we not overhype things—that this is another 9/11 cell, that they're ready, willing and able to die and had the means of accomplishing their attacks. And so I described it as an—that this was an aspirational group rather than operational group.
In terms of the plans, it was more aspirational than operational.
JAY WEAVER:
I think the public and the media began to realize very quickly that this was just not a strong case. That it was a weak case.
REPORTER:
It looks like these guys were actually asking for material support from what they thought was Al Qaeda. These guys couldn’t buy boots on their own? They don’t sound like very sophisticated or effective operators.
JAY WEAVER:
These guys didn’t have the ability to blow up anything, let alone the Sears Tower.
REPORTER:
Did you find any explosives, weapons—?
ALBERTO GONZALES:
And you raise a good point. Our philosophy here is that we try to identify plots in the earliest stages possible, because we don’t know what we don’t know about a terrorism plot.
MICHAEL MULLANEY, Chief, Counterterrorism Section, Department of Justice (2006-2019):
I hate to criticize an attorney general, but when he said we had taken out an Al Qaeda cell, yes, I knew that was going to be a problem. He went overboard. They were not an Al Qaeda cell. They were not directed by Al Qaeda. That is an overstatement. So the charges were valid. It was the overhyping of the case.
REPORTER:
They're charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization, namely Al Qaeda, even though there was no actual connection to Al Qaeda.
MIKE MULLANEY:
The problem with terrorism cases is you have to stop the act. And so you really, in a way, have to predict who’s going to do what. And so stings are very important, but if you overstate what you have done in a sting, then people begin to lose confidence in what you’re doing. They think you’re just out there creating a terrorist yourself.
MIKE GERMAN, FBI undercover agent (1992-2004):
I had been doing undercover work in terrorism cases for a decade before 9/11. And before 9/11, if I had called FBI headquarters and said, "I want to initiate an undercover operation targeting a terrorist group," the first question they would have asked me is, "OK, what terrorist group do these individuals belong to?" And if I said, "Well, they don’t actually belong to a terrorist group, they’re just saying things that sound kind of scary and things that terrorists might say," and they would say, "OK, well, what kind of weapons do they have?" And if I replied, "Well, they don’t actually have any weapons, and part of the plot would be to supply them with weapons." And then they would say, "Well, what plot do they have in mind?" And I would say, "Well, they haven’t actually identified a plot yet. Part of the operation would be to identify a plot and then provide them the weapons so that they could be terrorists." They would have sent me for counseling.
ALBERTO GONZALES:
Thank you.
JOHN PISTOLE:
Thank you.
MIKE GERMAN:
Through 2005 and 2006 there had been a very heated debate over extending expiring provisions of the Patriot Act. So I think that there was great pressure on the FBI to demonstrate both that there was a powerful threat that still existed inside the United States that justified this expanded surveillance authority and that the tools that they had been given through the Patriot Act were actually effective in identifying these plots.
Miami Federal
Detention Center
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
Correctional officers in the building all of a sudden start running to my cell and pointing at me and bringing people. So it’s like all of a sudden everybody coming to take a look at me.
And it was like, "Well, this is a terrorism case. And you fixing to get shipped to Guantanamo." When he said that, I could feel my stomach turn. I think for the next three days I had diarrhea. It was just—it was a shock, and then I knew what I was getting charged with, and I just hid up under the blanket while people come point at me. And it was horrifying.
REPORTER:
If they were homegrown terrorists, they grew up here, on this Miami street. Stanley Phanor was born in this house. Lyglenson Lemorin moved in across the street with his mom when he was just 6. And today the two mothers, both Haitian, told us in disbelief there were no terrorists raised on 45th St.
STANLEY’S MOTHER:
They have this, everything. They have this [inaudible].
LEVI’S MOTHER:
And they calling him "illegal immigrant" on the TV.
STANLEY’S MOTHER:
My son is good, from your country!
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
The objective then becomes to solicit the cooperation of one of the defendants—to flip someone.
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
And he was telling me, “Are you seriously thinking about spending the rest of your life in prison?” I said, “Man, I don't want to spend the rest of my life in prison.” They're like, “OK, then. So the only way you could do that is by signing these papers.” I'm like, “I’m going to set myself free without signing those papers.”
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
We was looking at the younger brothers, Naudimar and B. And we was like, "You know what, just sign what you got to sign." You know what I—
We told them brothers, Naudimar and B, "Man, sign what you got to sign, man, and get out of this. You real young." And they got upset. They was like, "No, we're not signing.” We facing 70 years and three life sentences and them brothers was like, nah, they not. And I definitely wasn't. So nobody was willing to sign off that they was terrorism. But more so, nobody was willing to—yeah, nobody was willing to send their brother, who they knew what we was out there doing in them streets, up the road for a charge that wasn't us.
LYGLENSON “LEVI” LEMORIN:
I refused every plea. I talked to my lawyer, I told my lawyer. My lawyer couldn't understand it. I told him that's basically how I've got to be because I was with these brothers. I knew what they was about. I knew if I take any plea, even regardless of plea that said that I didn't know nothing about that, then I'm—then it's actually saying something about my brothers that's left in there that I knew they was not about, what they say they was about.
October 2007
REPORTER:
Prosecutors laid out their case against seven men dubbed the Liberty City Seven, accused of conspiring to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago.
MIKE GERMAN:
You have to understand that in the counterterrorism field, the criminal penalties associated with the laws that are used, particularly laws like the material support for terrorism law, come with draconian penalties. So if a defense attorney went to a client who was charged with terrorism charges and said, "Hey, look, you’re looking at 30 or 40 years in jail if you go to trial and are convicted, but the government's offering you to plead out to five years," even somebody who's entirely innocent or believes that they were induced into committing some kind of crime, it wouldn’t be unusual for them to plead guilty to it. So the Liberty City Seven case was fascinating to me both because it showed me that all of the defendants were willing to go to trial, showed me that they were convinced they had done nothing wrong and moreover, it gave one of the very first opportunities to really examine the FBI’s tactics because all of the information would come out through the criminal trial.
REPORTER:
The challenge for the Liberty Seven defense: The suspects did indeed pledge an oath to Al Qaeda.
ALBERT LEVIN, Patrick Abraham’s attorney
When you have the attorney general of the United States having a press conference, I realized that I was in for a major battle going forward. Our story was a simple one: They didn't have the manner and means. They had no money. They barely had vehicles. They didn't have horses, and they certainly didn't have bombs.
This is a case manufactured primarily by the government, or in my case, my client’s case, this wasn’t his idea.
It was just a complete setup by the government. The plot was being moved forward by the informants and the FBI, who directed their activities. They ran this whole show. They provided the script. They provided the choreography, OK? They provided the direction. This was not a terrorist case at all, let alone a case where the actors, the defendants, were moving the plot forward.
ROD VEREEN, Sunny Phanor’s attorney:
They invented the players. They invented the theme. They invented how it was going to go down. They wrote this script. They wrote this script.
REPORTER:
One of the other defense attorneys said this was all really an inner-city scam.
ROD VEREEN:
Well, we do know that, first of all, that one of the things that was done in this case was that there was a serious question with regard to $50,000 being given to these individuals to help them to revitalize this building.
Here's Narseal saying, “We've got to get this $50,000, so man, just go along with this plan for me and then we're going to be good after that. Just go along with it. No, we're not going to do anything, but just go along with it.”
TREVOR AARONSON:
And so the defense became that these guys were doing this just for the money, that this was one big scam.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
It would have been a scam. It would have been a scam had he given us pictures of the Waffle House. Or given us a blank disc. Or just not have given us footage of the FBI office, the U.S. Attorney's Office and the Miami Police Department. So it's not a scam. I mean, that is an executed agreement.
JACKIE ARANGO:
Whether these people were being paid or not, the question is, are they willing to commit these acts? Whether it's for money or it's for free. So it really made no difference.
REPORTER:
Prosecutors told the jury they'll hear from among 15,000 government recordings of the group's plan to create chaos.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
This is the Sears Tower. Now what I plan on is attacking here. Here. Here. We're going to launch a full ground war.
ELIE ASSAAD:
What does that mean?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
That means that we're going to kill all the devils we can.
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
I'm hearing this for the first time. Now I know why we got indicted. Because in my mind, I thought the only meetings that occurred was the ones I was there.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I know for a fact, it can be just as good or greater than 9/11.
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
He’s a f------ nut. What the f--- is you running your g--damn mouth for? On and on and on.
ELIE ASSAAD:
There’s no—there will not be no survivors?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
No. We’ll make sure of that. If we see them surviving, we will shoot them.
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
My life was on the line but I just couldn't believe the words that was coming out of Batiste’s mouth.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Because of this millions of people will probably die.
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
I couldn’t believe I was on trial for these conversations.
ROD VEREEN:
Narseal got on the stand. I was literally yelling at him about how his stupidity and the things he did got these guys in trouble. And he's sitting up there and he's crying. And I said, “And here you are. You stepped off what we call the square, if you will, which is righteousness, and you led these guys down to the wrong path and everybody is now sitting up here, indicted by a federal government, looking at being called terrorists,” and he's bawling, he's crying.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I cried about it on the witness stand. Said it was something that I really didn't mean inside, that I was just going along with Abbas' game, using his language, him and Assaad. I wanted to stand up and shout and say that I'm not this person. I'm really a good person on the inside. I would never do those things. It was just a con game.
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
I kind of felt that he should have been a little stronger, you know what I mean? Because we was all together trying to give each other support, but he’ll just ball up in a corner and it was just—it was a lot of guilt of the things he said, all of us getting locked up with him, and his family image. Everything was destroyed. It took a toll on him.
I did maybe a year and eight months in Miami FDC. I was in solitary confinement. They call it the SHU.
Yeah, you probably go crazy in there, and I tell people maybe I am, maybe I’m not, but it’s—you don’t do that to another human being.
One day, a guy walked by me. And then he said “What's up?” to me with just a head nod. And I was at the little window, it's like a little six-inch window, and I'm looking and I gave him a head nod. And then I walked back to my chair and I’m just sitting there and it hit me, “I just seen Batiste!” So—I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it. He was a totally different person. He was skin and bones. It was times I heard him screaming in his cell. I think it just about killed him. I think it just about killed him.
December 2007
REPORTER:
After two long months of trial, the jurors couldn't decide any of the charges for the so-called Liberty City Seven.
JEFFREY AGRON, Jury foreman
There was a lot of disagreement, but all of the jurors worked very hard. Everybody gave it their all and came here every day for many, many months and did the best that we could.
I think the jury as a whole kind of felt sorry for these guys, that they got—they’ve wound themselves up in this position, but to some extent they did it themselves. There were a few people that really bought into this idea they were just doing this to scam this guy out of money. Which seems sort of odd, to be scamming Al Qaeda. They're not the type of people that you would think about really running a scam on, I wouldn't think. They would seem like kind of scary guys to cross.
That’s why I think there was a hung jury except that one defendant who they felt really had very little connection and wasn’t around for most of this and we dismissed the case against him. Found him not guilty.
REPORTER:
One of seven Miami men accused of plotting to join forces with Al Qaeda has been acquitted and a mistrial has been declared for the six other men.
LYGLENSON “LEVI” LEMORIN:
They said, “Lyglenson Lemorin, not guilty for the first charge. Lyglenson Lemorin, not guilty for the second charge, for the third charge, for the fourth charge.” And everybody was so happy.
REPORTER:
Was he crying, I couldn't tell—
JOEL DEFABIO, Levi’s attorney:
Yes, we both were. It's very emotional.
Levi was found not guilty at the first trial. And it was fantastic. Thought he’d be able to move on with his life.
LYGLENSON “LEVI” LEMORIN:
Well, I went back. We all thought I'm going home, packed my stuff and then that's when immigration came and got me.
Haiti
JOEL DEFABIO:
The judge found that he had associated himself with a terrorist group, and that in and of itself was deportable.
LYGLENSON “LEVI” LEMORIN:
If you look at my case, I have no conviction. Nothing. That trial was my only thing, and I've been working all my life. I got kids, wife. I married an American. I beat the case. I beat the case and I’m sent home.
JAY WEAVER:
You can be found not guilty, but it still doesn't mean you're not guilty in the eyes of the U.S. government. He couldn't even come back to the United States for his 15-year-old son's funeral when he was killed along the highway trying to assist a motorist who had been stalled and their car had broken down.
LYGLENSON “LEVI” LEMORIN:
It’s a pain where you can’t—you don’t know. It’s almost like your heart’s closing and you don’t know what to do. And I zoned out. Life start over. Life ain’t finished. God is great. I’m going to continue to be me. I’m going to continue to strive to better myself.
It’s really nothing changed of how I feel about America. I love America. America's a great country. But, what happened to us, it’s not America that did it. It’s not America. It’s a few people in America that people put their trust in.
January 2008
REPORTER:
Federal prosecutors say they will retry the six men on whom the jurors deadlocked. Judge Joan Lenard set jury selection for January.
ROD VEREEN:
It's hard to be able to look at the media once you've arrested somebody and called them a terrorist and then drop the case against them after one trial, saying, “OK, we're going to let them back out on the streets to complete what they were trying to do.”
JAY WEAVER:
And so the government had to retry the case. And they tried it a second time. And it hung a second time for the same reasons.
JACKIE ARANGO:
We did. We tried it again and there was another mistrial.
April 2008
REPORTER:
A federal judge has declared another mistrial. Prosecutors now have a week to decide if they're going to try them for a third time.
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
When that trial came to a hung jury again, we just knew they was going to throw this case out. There ain’t no way they're coming back again for another trial with us, because it was so embarrassing.
ALBERT LEVIN:
My experience has been it's two times and they're done. But it depends on the case. If they want somebody bad enough, they continue to go after the person. And they wanted these guys, badly.
January 2009
REPORTER:
Two juries failed to reach a verdict. Now a third jury will try.
RICHARD GREGORIE, Senior Litigation Counsel, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Miami (1994-2018):
Imagine if we did nothing about this case and instead of the FBI coming to Batiste, one of these organizations actually came to Batiste and provided him the explosives. So could we ignore it? And if we had ignored it and he had blown up a building, he had done damage to this building you’re sitting in right now and people were killed, wouldn't you be coming back to us to say, “Why didn't you do something about it? Why did you ignore it?” This is the question: Do you want us to stop them before they commit this kind of crime, or do you want to let it happen first?
JAY WEAVER:
So the government said, “We’re going to give this one last try. A third time.” And each time they tried the case, the case got smaller and more defined and more focused. And even with the third trial they really flailed, because the jurors were out for almost 12, 13 days. So it looked like it was going to be another hung jury.
RICHARD GREGORIE:
The jury went out for deliberations and there was one juror who refused to deliberate. She just refused. So the judge had to excuse that juror.
JAY WEAVER:
Within 24 hours an alternate was brought in and he joined the other 11 and convicted five of the six. A sixth defendant was found not guilty.
REPORTER:
After the verdict was read, the one Liberty Six member who was acquitted called the prosecution of his friends "bogus.”
REPORTER:
You had no intention of doing any of the things you talked about?
NAUDIMAR HERRERA:
It was all a whole bunch of hogwash from the beginning.
REPORTER:
You weren’t serious about any of it?
NAUDIMAR HERRERA:
Nobody was serious about nothing. It’s not real.
SPEAKER:
Give us a little space, please.
May 2009
REPORTER:
It took three years and three trials, but a group of Florida men accused in a plot to destroy Chicago’s Sears Tower are each facing decades in prison.
Narseal Batiste received a 13 1/2-year sentence for conspiracy to support Al Qaeda and levy war against the U.S. government.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I felt like I got hit in the head with an 80-ton concrete ball or something, or knocked out. I cried, thought my life was over, all based on what I said.
MINERVA VAZQUEZ:
A certain part of me just died there. And now I was left with four young children to raise without no other family, no other help but just me and them. You're taking this innocent man away from his—and all the rest of these young men, away from their families, without no evidence? I can't be living this. I can't. I can't be living this.
ANTHONY VELAZQUEZ:
I have a responsibility to the people that I work for, which are the citizens of the United States, to go where the facts and evidence leads. I've looked at this a thousand ways to Sunday. I wish I could say, "Look, this is what happened, and this is how.” I just can't get myself there. They did what they were convicted of.
RICHARD GREGORIE:
The problem was there were a lot of sensitive issues in this case. For instance, we got them a warehouse where we had cameras, and they had a meeting, and they swore the oath to Al Qaeda. But we could have delivered them a load of arms and munitions, made the arms and munitions inoperable but delivered. Once they accepted that, we could have taken them down with the munitions in their hand and I think that would have been far, far more effective. But at that time the Bureau was so nervous about providing potential terrorists with weaponry that they just flat-out said, "No, you can't do that."
MIKE GERMAN:
Al Qaeda didn’t know any of these individuals. They didn’t have anybody who could have done a full ground war in the United States or taken down the Sears Tower. But many Americans believe they did because the FBI manufactured this plot. I was hoping that they would learn that this case was an overreach, that they had gone too far and perhaps undermined public trust in the counterterrorism tactics that they were using. But they seem to have taken the opposite lesson. And what you see in the sting operations after Liberty City Seven is an effort to sensationalize the cases even further, to where they will go to the extent of actually providing significant weaponry to these groups.
NEWSREADER:
—was arrested yesterday during an FBI sting operation. He’s a U.S. citizen—
The Department of Justice has obtained hundreds more terror convictions using undercover informants.
NEWSREADER:
Demetrius Pitts faces charges after he communicated with an undercover agent.
Like Liberty City, many of the defendants in these cases had no direct connection to a terror group.
NEWSREADER:
He believed that the FBI planted this bombing plot—
NEWSREADER:
—undercover agents who said they could help him bomb the mall.
NEWSREADER:
They set this kid up.
TREVOR AARONSON:
If you lay out sting operations on a chart, what you see is this enormous uptick after 2009. I think it's just further emboldened the FBI and the Department of Justice in its use of these types of sting operations, knowing that essentially, if they can convict these guys in Miami, they can convict just about anybody.
JOHN PISTOLE:
The Liberty City-Sears Tower case was significant in the sense of taking people with bad motives, bad intent, off the street, holding them accountable and then serving as a deterrent to other potential terrorists.
DAN REED:
Were these terrorists in a real sense?
JOHN PISTOLE:
My personal opinion was no because—and that's why I describe them as aspirational rather than operational—because I didn't believe they could do something, based on what I had seen.
MIKE MULLANEY:
I’m not going to hype these cases to be something that they're not, but they're very important, because if we can't do them, it's going to be hard to stop terrorists. The Liberty City case was one of the cases that we would use in training: OK, this is a cautionary tale. Be careful as to how far your undercover agents or your informants push. And when you do arrest, don’t overstate what you’ve got. The goal is not to take somebody that is not a terrorist and make them a terrorist. They weren’t really the terrorists that we were seeking out.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
This is my job.
Houston, Texas
2019
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
I was hired as a supervisor underneath the project manager to run the job site with small contractors. This is excellent. It's—it might not be as good as me subcontracting things on my own and making more money in a momentous type of way, but it's a steady income. I'm on salary pay. And I'm just happy.
DAN REED:
Did you ever imagine that you were being recorded?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Yes.
DAN REED:
You did? You knew that you were being videoed?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Yes. It was clear.
DAN REED:
Did you see where the video cameras were?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
No. They were hidden cameras.
DAN REED:
Did you tell the brothers that you thought your meetings with Assaad might have been recorded by law enforcement?
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Yes.
DAN REED:
I still don't really understand how you thought you could get away with it [laughs], even if you got the money.
NARSEAL “NAZ” BATISTE:
Yeah, I didn't seem—I didn't really—at the end of the day, I thought about it and said, "I probably won't get away with it but I’ll just spend some of it," and if they caught me, "Hey, I'm sorry I took the money, can I give it back? I spent some of it." That's what I thought I could use as an excuse.
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
I wonder if he's trying to save face because he realized how stupid he was. Everybody makes mistakes, but not everybody’s mistakes is recorded for the world to see over and over and over again. His is. So I guess his best answer is trying to say, “Aw, yeah, I'm smart.” Nah, you was just that dumb. That's all that was. That's all that was.
DAN REED:
He didn’t know?
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
He didn't know. He didn’t know.
Burson Augustin served 6 years in prison.
BURSON “B” AUGUSTIN:
Finance was becoming a problem because of my case. So it was hard to find employment or anything else. So when I did find employment, it was like a bull--- ass job. And I said, I'm going to take this job, take this check and I'm going to mix this through what I know best, which is go back to the street and go back to the hustling game, to the cocaine or whatever, and just mix and mingle with the people I know.
They're so concerned with terrorist watch, I was selling dope under their eyes the whole time and I was on federal probation. So they couldn’t be that concerned with me. They couldn’t have. I made money.
Burson served another 16 months for dealing cocaine.
Patrick Abraham served 8 years and 2 months in prison.
PATRICK ABRAHAM:
In terms of Batiste, nah, I wanted to strangle the guy, man, because I felt like, "You don't listen. You got caught up in yourself and now this is what this come down." And this is not just something that affect us immediately. It affect all—every last one of our families. Of course I wanted to strangle his ass.
After serving his sentence Patrick was deported to Haiti.
Sunny Phanor served 9 years and 9 months in prison.
STANLEY “SUNNY” PHANOR:
I lose part of me. I lost everything I was. My whole 30s was spent in prison. In your 30s, that's when you buy a house, you know what I mean? You start to be financially sound, you know? Having kids. I spent all that time in prison. So I'm out right now, I don't got no kids, no wife, no girlfriend, no real job. [Laughs] Oh, man.
Until recently, the informant Abbas al-Saidi worked the night shift in a sawmill.
The whereabouts of the other informant, Elie Assaad, are unknown.
