Representation Issues
Abdulrahman’s decision to plead guilty was never his intention nor the advice from his family or his private council. This decision was wrongly influenced by the federal defender and shocked everyone – especially his family – when they were informed only after the fact.
When Abdulrahman was arrested at the hotel he was staying at with his parents, his case was assigned to New York federal defenders.
Abdulrahman’s relationship with his federal defender has been questionable from the get-go. He was skeptical of the federal defenders because of their supposed relationship with law enforcement. Abdulrahman asked his parents to find alternative representation.
Over the period of his pre-trial detention, the public defender would not update Abdulrahman’s family regularly. Furthermore, the federal defender convinced Abdulrahman that he had no other options and told him that Dennis Edney – who was in discussion of partaking in Abdulrahmans’s defence but in the end did not do so – was a bad lawyer. Also, Dennis Edney told the judge about his interaction with the federal defender that “He [Abdulrahman] told me that he [Abdurahman] was told by Ms. Shroff that I was a bad lawyer,” who “screamed at me on the phone” and eventually had to “[withdraw] from further communications with her.”
At multiple times the federal defender asked to be relieved to the rejection of the Judge’s decision. Ultimately, the Judge ordered both private counsel and federal defenders to team up “equally” as co-counsel which did not benefit Abdulrahman’s defence.
Unlike private counsel, the federal defender had regular and unrestricted access to him. Subsequently, she took advantage of Abdulrahman’s vulnerability and took control of his decision-making. After his prolonged solitary confinement, his cutoff from family, his lack of medication for his bipolar condition, and his drug relapse, Abdulrahman became extremely vulnerable and fatigued. Due to his solitary confinement, the visits by the public defender and her favors become the only meaningful human contact Abdulrahman had, making her indispensable. After gaining Abdulrahman’s trust, the federal defender had told him to plead guilty if he wanted to get out of prison rather than to comply with his parent’s decision of private counsel which according to the federal defender would have upset the judge and led to a heavy sentence.
Abdulrahman’s decision to plead guilty was never his intention nor the advice from his family or his private council. This decision was wrongly influenced by the federal defender and shocked everyone – especially his family – when they were informed only after the fact.
During the process of choosing representation, Abdulrahman became indecisive and confused about legal representation, but eventually chose private counsel. On November 7, 2017, Abdulrahman made clear that he wanted to be represented by Mr. Frisch and Mr. Wright, whom he had spoken with about the decision. The judge ordered the federal defender to remain Abdulrahman’s counsel and that Mr. Frisch and Mr. Wright were “equally responsible” as co-counsel which did not benefit his defense.
According to Mr. Frisch’s appeal, “By the time of Judge Berman’s order that two sets of lawyers be “equally responsible” as counsel, Bahnasawy was unequivocal in his request that he be solely represented by Mr. Frisch and Mr. Wright; he had explained to Judge Berman as part of an extensive colloquy that he “just didn’t want Federal Defenders anymore for my own will, for my own thinking;” he (and all the lawyers) had been provided a transcript of his extensive colloquy with Judge Berman to reflect on the decision; the Federal Defender had by then not spoken to Bahnasawy in some time; and thereafter two sets of lawyers attempted to “work as a team” and “congeal,” [as stated by the federal defender] not to animate Bahnasawy’s exercise of his Sixth Amendment rights as he saw best, but to accommodate Judge Berman.”
The retained counsel by Abdulrahman’s parents consisted of Dennis Edney, Jason D. Wright, and Andrew J. Frisch. One of the guarantees of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the right to counsel exclusively exercised by the defendant. In this case, Abdulrahman had the option between the federal defenders (Ms. Schroff and Mr. Kaminsky) or the private lawyers, but ultimately the Judge rejected Abdulrahman’s choice of retained counsel and enforced the representation of the federal defenders.
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"What makes this story even more disturbing is that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) knowingly participated in this sting with the FBI. They unlawfully obtained Abdulrahman’s medical records that described his mental health vulnerabilities and provided them to the FBI to better manipulate this damaged youth.
This raises serious human rights concerns of discriminatory investigations, targeting vulnerable youths such as Abdulrahman, who had no previous history of violence or criminality, until drawn in by a U.S. government actively involved in developing the plot, persuading and pressuring the target to participate."