By STEPHANIE BERZON & CADITA ROUSSEAU

A Bronx resident broke down on the witness stand Tuesday as he described the ordeal of being stopped and frisked while visiting his fiancée at a Bronx apartment complex.

The testimony came during a hearing this week at Manhattan Federal Court investigating the New York City Police Department’s key crime-fighting tactic known as “Stop and Frisk” and whether it violated civil rights.

Charles Bradley, 52, testified that he told the police that he was at the residential building to visit his girlfriend, who happened to not be there at the time. Officer Miguel Santiago placed Bradley in his van with another sergeant. He was questioned about drugs and then brought to the police station, where he was strip-searched and charged with trespassing.

The “Stop-and-Frisk” debate has been spotlighted recently after the announcement that a class action lawsuit challenging the tactic will go to trial in March 2013 – five years since the case was first filed.

The case stems from a 2008 lawsuit of four black men accusing the department of improperly targeting them because of their race. U.S. District Judge Shira A.Scheindlin   granted class action status to the lawsuit last May.

In the first six months of 2012 the police stopped New Yorkers 337,434 times, free run 6 femmes reported the NYCLU. Eighty-nine percent of the stops were innocent.53 percent of those stopped were black,, 32 percent were Latino and nine percent were white, the report alleged.

However, the department defends the tactic, arguing the stops decreased crime rates and took guns off the street.

From 2001 to 2010 violent crimes fell 29 percent here but the NYCLU reported that violent crimes also fell in cities that did not use stop and frisk: 59 percent in Los Angeles, 56 percent in New Orleans, 49 percent in Dallas and 37 percent in Baltimore.

Letitia James lives at the River Park Towers in the Bronx and testified that she has been stopped and frisked six times. On crutches at the hearing, she told Assistant U.S. Attorney Shannon Walker that she had to provide identification twice to prove she was a resident of the building and that once questioned by police, she was not free to leave.

“I am annoyed and frustrated each time I have been stopped by the police,” said James.

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By AVRIL REGIS

Another former St. John’s student testified Tuesday that the disgraced dean of Asian Studies made her wash her underwear and prepare dinner or lose her scholarship.

Another witness said that the dean, Cecilia Chang, had her falsify documents in order to defraud the university of unwarranted expenses.

The testimony came in the Brooklyn Federal Court trial of Chang, charged in a 10-count indictment with embezzlement and forced labor.

“There weren’t any days that no housekeepers worked, the calendar on the fridge always told them who was going to work,” testified Jing Zhou regarding Chang and her son Steven.

Chang had three student housekeepers working for her and her son Steven seven days a week during Fall 2009 in their Jamaica Estates home, the indictment charges.

The students were required to do 20 hours a week of university service in order to keep their scholarship.

Zhou testified that her duties included cooking, cleaning, and buying groceries.

Zhou also recalled going to bed at 3 a.m. after fulfilling her duties for the night, waking up at 6 a.m. to iron the dean’s pants and making her breakfast despite having a 9 a.m. class.

With the help of a translator Zhou recalled an e-mail she sent to a school official to complain about the work she did for Chang in June 2010. Each scholarship recipient was required to work a total of 122 days, Zhou says she worked for 186 days from May 14^th 2009 to June 27^th, 2010.

Zhou added she worked for Chang even after the dean had been fired by the university.

“I didn’t know what had happened at that point,” said Zhou.

Prosecutors say that Chang submitted almost $1 million in fraudulent expense statements that she used to buy lingerie, trips to the casinos repairs to her Mercedes, ski trips for her son, online dating service subscriptions, a $1,300 dinner at celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay’s Taiwan restaurant and her son’s tuition bills.

A second witness on Tuesday, St. John’s student Min Yen, testified that she was instructed by Chang to

create spreadsheets and expense accounts aimed at disguising Chang’s unauthorized purchases as legitimate expenses.

As Yen testified Chang smiled, shook her head and reapplied her lip-gloss.

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By NAKIA COPELAND

A church residence project received a $550,000 grant today to construct affordable housing for elderly grandparents raising grandchildren in southeast Queens.

Calvary Baptist Church accepted the grant to the fill the gap created because government does not allow people who live in subsidized housing to take in grandchildren.

“Southeast Queens has an ever growing number of grandparents who are the primary caregivers for their grandchildren,” said Congressman Gregory Meeks, “This award will go a long way toward alleviating the pressure these families face in restrictive housing.”

The project entails constructing 58 units designated for low- and very low-income elders and some larger units for grandparents with legal custody of their grandchildren. The Church first announced this idea in October 2009.

“This grew out of a ministry in our church called Grandparent Support Group where grandparents in the support group come mostly from the community and are not a part of our church,” said Rev. Victor Hall. “The grandparents have come together to seek help with education, information, lobbying, social and fellowship activities to help relieve some of the pressure that they have.”

The grant is part of $26.4 million in housing subsidies from the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York.

“We want to make sure that these grandkids have opportunities, education, and everything that they need, so that when they come up they can take over and become wonderful citizens in our society,” said Deacon Kent A. Garrett. Several on-site services will be provided, including parenting classes, respite care, counseling and support groups, summer programs for children, stress reduction and exercise classes.

The building would be located at the corner of Guy R. Brewer Boulevard and 112th Road. It would be five stories tall with a sixth-story setback. The expected rent would be about 60 percent of the adjusted median income, $750 to $800 for a one-bedroom apartment, $975 for a two-bedroom and $1,100 for a three-bedroom.

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By YVONNE JURIS & MELANIE GOLDBERG

He just wanted to make the world a better place, by first killing his homosexual partner and then admitting to it.

That was how accused murderer Renato Seabra defended himself in a confession to Detective Richard Torrelli that was read from the witness stand in a Manhattan courtroom Tuesday.

The confession was made the day after the defendant allegedly killed and castrated his boyfriend and Lisbon gossip reporter Carlos Castro in a local hotel room in January 2011.

The confession in Portuguese at Bellevue Hospital contained these details and admissions:

Seabra met the victim on Facebook in October 2010. In late December and they decided to vacation together to New York City; by January 7^th their relationship had soured. Seabra had begun to doubt his own homosexuality, causing Castro to threaten to break off the relationship. Seabra grabbed Castro from behind, put pressure on his windpipe, broke his arm, hit him with a bottle and a TV and stabbed his groin with a corkscrew.

Seabra then removed his partner’s testicles, court records showed.

“This would make everything in the world right,” Seabra was quoted saying. “I wanted to free the demons by cutting the testicles off.”

The police records after the incident said that Seabra then slit his wrists, mingling his blood with that of Castro’s. He then showered, got dressed in his best suit, hopped in a cab, and roamed lower Manhattan telling people the world “wasn’t a good place.” He later got into a second cab, adidas neo whose driver noticed the blood and drove him to a hospital.

The next day, however, when Seabra met with the detective, Torrelli said he “seemed sane.”

“He was cooperative, fully communicating and involved,” Torrelli testified on the witness stand. “At the conclusion of our meeting he looked relieved.”

Defense attorney David Touger attempted to undermine the confession saying that Torrelli didn’t use a tape during the meeting and didn’t meet with the DA to compare notes. Torrelli also admitted that he never signed off on the confession’s translation.

“You were concerned with finding out what he [Seabra] did, not why he did it,” the defense attorney said.

“I already felt like he was a sick man,” replied Torrelli, a detective for 29 years.

Seabra’s advocates were expected to mount an insanity defense.

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By MELANIE GOLDBERG 

The controversy over removing support for Jerusalem as the capital of
Israel from the Democratic platform is causing some Zionistic American Jews
to reconsider backing President Barack Obama.

“I have been a Democrat for years,” Nava Burgida, a 54-year-old attorney
from Brooklyn,  said. “And although my vote usually stands along my party
lines, this might have crossed my own personal line.”

The Democrats’ platform committee had removed the party’s support for
Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in August, then reinstated it after Obama
insisted on it at the convention in Charlotte, N.C. in September. The
waffling has led some Jewish voters to ponder allegiances involving
politics, religion and nationality.

Polls show that traditionally strong Jewish support for Democrats has been
slipping.

In the 2008 election, exit polls showed that 78 percent of the Jewish vote
went to Obama.  According to Pew Research Center, just 65 percent of Jews
identified with the Democratic Party by 2011. More recently, the attention
of Jewish groups has focused on the Investors Business Daily/Christian
Science Monitor/TIPP Poll released Sept. 10 finding that 59 percent of Jews
plan on voting for Obama this time around, a sharp drop from 2008. The
pollster noted that this number was based on a small sample size.

“Voting is a complicated task. Personally as a Jew, this [Israel] is one
issue among many,” said Bob Liff, a self-described Democratic political
activist  and a former political reporter for New York Newsday and the New
York Daily News.   “Israel is a concern to all voters. It just carries a
particular resonance with Jews.”

This debate hasn’t been limited to older voters. Politically active
college students have joined in, especially on campuses where concern for
Israel has been strong.

“Foreign policy is always a big concern for me when I’m voting,” said
Michelle Terebelo, a member of the  Israel Club at Brooklyn College. “And
the fact that I would consider not voting for Obama because his platform’s
stance has been shaky on what resonates with me, says a lot about how votes
might be determined in this election.”

Terebelo was referring to the controversy at the Democratic National
Convention concerning Jerusalem.

“There’s a bigger picture here,” Robin Cohen, a Brooklyn College computer
science major,  said. “If Obama cannot decide his policy on the Middle East
before he gets elected, who’s to say he won’t flip-flop on it once he is
actually elected? It presents itself as a major concern to me.”

Back in 2009, in his speech in Cairo, Obama promised the Arab world and the
Palestinians “two states for two peoples.” Although this has been the
stance of the U.S. government towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
critics said the president didn’t specify that he expected the Palestinian
people to make concessions along with the Israelis in pursuit of a state.

“The problem was that he gave them [the Arab world] false hope,” Tova
Medetsky, an accounting major at Brooklyn College, said.

Medetsky said that she hadn’t been planning to vote for Obama
for “a variety of reasons,” but said the dispute over the platform affirmed
her decision.

Interviews conducted with 60 politically active Jewish students at Brooklyn College found that Medetsky is not alone in this decision. Some 29 percent said they would have voted Republican anyway.

“If Obama affiliates himself with the Democratic Party, he holds what the
platform says,” Jack Silverstein, the college’s Israel on Campus Coalition
intern of 2011-2012, said. “The platform changed for the first time ever,
so Obama changed too.”

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By KRYSTAL DANIEL

Titus McQueen ran as fast as he could. He took cover from scattering bullets in the tall, red-brick buildings he has come to know very well, Cypress Hills Houses in East New York.  He ran down Blake Avenue between Logan and Milford streets.

It’s a short block with scant patches of greenery seeping through cracked, uneven concrete. Colorful awnings adorn each home, the only hue brightening the grey passage leading up to the uniform project buildings.

Ambulance sirens and a “burning heartbeat” in his foot is most of what McQueen, 34, recalls about the hot summer day 12 years ago when he was shot twice in the foot. “My adrenalin was pumping, I didn’t feel anything until a few minutes after I stopped running,” he said. “Then I thought, damn! They finally got me. I’ve been shot.”

The bullet, along with the ability to wiggle his toes, remains for McQueen a bleak reminder of the gun violence that affects East New York residents.

But even in a community with much more than its share of gun violence, residents express indifference to gun control as an issue in the presidential campaign. What matters to those interviewed are decent, affordable housing, sufficient well-paying jobs, and recreation for the community’s children.

That’s not good news for Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his organization Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which took out advertising before the first presidential debate urging President Barack Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney to address the issue. So far, Bloomberg has not had much success in making gun control a campaign issue in a year dominated by economic concerns. (His spokesperson did not return a call seeking comment.)

“In poor and minority neighborhoods you don’t know where the next meal is coming from, and your one step away from the shelter. It’s killed or be killed,” said Walter Campbell, manager of Community Board 5 in East New York.

Police reported 14 murders and 659 robberies as of Oct. 7  in East New York’s 75^th Precinct. Shooting incidents declined slightly to 62 from 67 the previous year.

Offering  a weary smile as he spoke about his past, McQueen said, “I got to eat was the only thing on my mind, so I sold drugs to survive.” Eventually McQueen was spotted by a rival dealer who opened fire on him. McQueen has long left his past behind and currently works operating a forklift in a warehouse.

“I didn’t know much about finding a job and no one was there to teach me, McQueen said. “Growing up in the projects all I knew was how to hustle.”

Many residents of East New York realize that the community is lacking opportunities for young people, a leading factor in the rampant gun violence in the area.

“The government has to provide more opportunities. Kids have no resources and no place to go so they get distracted by other elements that aren’t good,” said Marjorie Cooke, 46, a 15-year resident of the neighborhood.

Jeffrey Matthews, 37, manager of a hardware warehouse in East New York recalls, “I’ve been shot at many times. A good portion of my teenage years I walked around with a firearm.” He added:  “Without many opportunities, or role models, young people turn to the streets.”

In the wake of a gunman’s devastating attack on a movie audience in Aurora, Colo. that left 12 dead, on July 20, Bloomberg wrote a letter to Obama outlining legislation that would impede the sale and use of illegal guns.

Despite his efforts, a Pew Research Center poll reveals gun violence is not a high priority in the campaign or among voters. Like residents of East New York, voters are more concerned with the economy, jobs, healthcare, and education.

The poll found that for 87 percent of adults  prioritized the economy, 83 percent jobs, 74 percent healthcare, and 69 percent education.

Much as elsewhere, gun control is not high on the list in East New York.

“Our first priority is affordable housing, second is education,” said Campbell who is working with the New York City Housing Authority to build housing in East New York that is not solely based on low income. Charter schools are also important to Campbell, who likes that the city broke up two of the largest high schools in the area. “Thomas Jefferson and Franklin K. Lane each were broken down into four different specialized schools,” he said.  “Now teenagers have an opportunity to choose a specialty.”

Having spent more than seven years in prison for gun and drug possession, McQueen regrets his past. “If I grew up in a different environment without the violence, the guns, the drugs, I would have had a fighting chance and been better off today,” he said. McQueen’s status as a felon stops him from voting but he still believes in Obama. “I would vote for Obama; he would give more opportunities to my children and my community, opportunities I never had.”

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By KIRAN SURY

There is Sgt. Jacob Payne, 26, from Texas, who speaks in slow, measured sentences with a classic southern drawl and still says negative instead of no. He thinks Mitt Romney is a “sneaky little sucker,” but will probably vote for him if he can’t cast a ballot for Ron Paul.

There is Sgt. Daniel Kim, 25, from California, who has a hearty laugh and a penchant for comic books, which he refers to as graphic novels. He voted for John McCain in 2008 because, in his words, “Obama pissed me off.” But he will vote for Barack Obama this November. He is Republican.

There is Sgt. Julia Venegas, 25, also from Texas, who is engaged and goes to school for media studies in North Carolina. She had Thanksgiving dinner with McCain a few years ago and wishes he would run again. She will vote for Romney not out of loyalty, but because at this point she will settle for “anybody but Obama.” She too is Republican.

There is Cpl. Eli Robbins, 27, from Utah, who recalls a childhood filled with drive-by shootings and the Japanese anime Cowboy Bebop. He considers his vote for Ralph Nader one of the least important things he did while serving in Iraq. “My vote wasn’t going to count anyway,” he said, “because I didn’t vote for a Republican or Democrat.” He doesn’t know whom he will vote for this fall, but it will not be for a candidate from either of the two major parties. He is proudly independent.

Finally, there is Sgt. Ramon Nicolas Howard, 28, from New York, who has both a grinning skull that represents his amphibious assault unit and the Sanskrit word “mukti,” meaning spiritual freedom and liberation, tattooed on his right arm. He has not voted since Bush v. Gore in 2000, when he was registered as a Democrat. “Voting, just, I don’t,” he said. “It doesn’t work for me.”

These five Marines are just a few of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom. They come from different parts of the country, belong to different political parties, and have different views on the most important issues of the upcoming election. But they are united in one thing – their disappointment in both the Democratic ad Republican parties, and their candidates for president.

Both Obama and Romney are aggressively courting veterans’ votes, most recently in swing-state Virginia. At campaign events in late September, both candidates accused the other of not making the military a high priority.

“The idea of cutting our military commitment by a trillion dollars over this decade is unthinkable and devastating,” Romney said. “And when I become president of the United States, we will stop it. I will not cut our commitment to the military.”

The Obama campaign responded by reminding voters of Romney’s “47 percent” remarks. “Mitt Romney would like Virginians to forget how he disdainfully wrote off half of all Americans, including veterans and active-duty members, at a fund-raiser with high-dollar donors,” a spokeswoman said in an e-mail statement.

The Marines’ disenchantment with the presidential candidates comes at a time when there is a larger shift away from party affiliation in the military. According to a survey conducted by the Military Times in 2010, the percentage of military personnel who were Republicans decreased by one-third since 2004, while the percentage of independents nearly doubled during the same period. Polls by the Pew Research Center in 2011 found that Republicans and independents could each lay claim little over a third of post-9/11 veterans, while Democrats comprise a fifth of those who responded.

Philip Napoli, assistant professor at the Brooklyn College Department of History and director of the Veterans Oral History Project, theorizes that the shift could be attributed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “At the beginning of the 2000s, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, soldiers and veterans strongly identified with the Republicans. However, there is some evidence indicating that today’s soldiers are shifting away from the Republican Party,” he wrote in response to emailed questions. “That could be because the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are so closely identified with President Bush and the Republicans. However it could simply be the case that soldier’s political affiliations are reflective of broad national trends.”

*     *     *

Sgt. Kim considers healthcare to be the most important issue facing America. Combat veterans from Iraq get free general health care for up to five years after their service, and are covered for any disabilities for life due to their combat role. His concern is fiscal, not medical.

“Healthcare is going to be such a huge part of the budget, of the debt, of what we’re going to have to combat or try and fix over the next couple of years,” he said.

Cpl. Robbins has experienced this first hand. “Since I’m a disabled vet health insurance isn’t a really big issue for me,” he said. “But my wife, her health insurance spiked. It went up 20 percent this year, which is ridiculous.” He blames the cost increase on Obama’s healthcare plan.

In contrast to Cpl. Robbins, Sgt. Kim and Sgt. Howard support the individual mandate to buy health insurance included in Obama’s plan, which Sgt. Kim called a step towards building a better budget. Sgt. Payne acknowledges that Obama has the right idea for health insurance reform, but said that he is going about it the wrong way.

“Everybody who has it knows it’s a good thing to have, but some people really just can’t afford it,” he said in a telephone interview. “I’ve been out of a job for too long now, and I know I can’t afford health insurance. They should certainly work on the unemployment situation before they start worrying about healthcare. They’re not prioritizing correctly.”

With the unemployment rate at 11.6 percent for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan as of last year, unemployment and the economy weigh heavily on Sgt. Venegas. “There’s a lot that goes into the economy,” she said over the phone. “If that was to improve or change then a lot of the other problems would kind of like fall into place.”

Sgt. Payne had a similar view. “I think Romney’s more qualified to get us out of the gutter that we’re in,” he said, citing Romney’s business experience at Bain Capital as an edge over Obama. In contrast, Sgt. Kim said that Romney’s foreign policy gaffes negate that. “I can’t look at him without poking holes in all of his arguments. Somebody like that, to me, can’t run a country,” he said.

*     *     *

Sgt. Howard explains his reluctance to vote as a form of resistance. “I’m not Democratic, I’m not Republican, if anything, I’m a patriot. I love my country, hate 90 percent of the people in charge, but I love this country,” he said. “And I love the potential it has to do good, that we’re not taking advantage of.” But he refuses to choose between what he calls “the lesser of two evils.”

Sgt. Payne echoes the feelings of being trapped in a system with only two viable candidates. “I don’t feel like either of the candidates – either of the primary candidates – are really worth their salt,” he said. “What are you going to do? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, really.”

Cpl. Robbins further sums up the problem. “It’s great to be able to vote,” he said. “But what’s the right to vote if, you know, your vote doesn’t count if you don’t want to vote for a Democrat or a Republican?”

Said Sgt. Kim: “I’m voting for Obama. Or I’m going to pencil myself in.”

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By SIGOURNEY SEALEY

The New York City Landmark Preservation Commission on Tuesday voted 6 to 1 to landmark some 330 buildings for preservation in  a new East Village/Lower East Side historic district.

The action was designed to slow down the rapid gentrification of the area.

The panel excluded only five buildings from the proposed district situated in the area west of Avenue A and south of St. Mark’s Place centered on Second Avenue.

“Each wave of immigrants that settled in the district gave rise to the richly layered built environment that remains today,” observed Commission Chairman Robert Tierney

Local preservationists praised the action.

“I think it was unnecessary to remove the five buildings,” said Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, “but we’re happy about the 330 buildings that were remained in.”

Among the buildings protected from the wrecking ball were the Fillmore East concert hall — now defunct — famous for appearances by Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead in the rock heyday of the 1960’s. Other notable buildings preserved were the Russian Orthodox Cathedral on E. 2^nd Street and a synagogue at 415 E. 6^th St.

“This is a victory,” Berman later added.  “It’s an enormous step forward and we’re gonna keep pushing for more designations from here.”

Opposition to the landmarking came from property owners like Krystyna Piorskowska. who owns a multi-family residential building on East 7th street and has lived in the East Village neighborhood since 1975. She argued that there was insufficient outreach to property owners like herself.

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By YVONNE JURIS 7 CADITA ROUSSEAU

Yet another ex-girlfriend testified that he confessed to killing his wife.

Amanda Shulman, 32, told the jury at Bronx Supreme Court Tuesday that Eddy Coello confessed to her that he ‘snapped’ and killed his wife. The confession came the morning after the wife Tina Adovasio disappeared, she added.

“I’m going to confess something to you. I did this. I don’t want you to defend me,” Coello said, according to Shulman.

Shulman said that Coello came to her house the night of his wife’s disappearance, but did not speak about the murder until the morning.

This is the second testimony about a confession in what seems to be an apparent string of confessions that Coello made following his wife’s disappearance. Last week Monica Rodriguez told the jury that Coello had called her and confessed the murder to her at 2 am. Rodriguez and Coello have a 19-year- old daughter.

Shulman also said that she and Coello went to his mother’s house after he confessed to her, where he told his family that he was going to “need their support” and that he wanted Shulman to take care of his children.’

Shulman and Coello had dated for six months in 2000, when they met in physician assistant school

The 38-year-old former housing cop, who resigned from the force in 2000 during a domestic violence investigation with another ex-girlfriend, was arrested last March after the body of Tina Adovasio was found along the southbound wooded area of the Taconic Parkway. The autopsy found that she was strangled and had trauma on her head and chest.

Last week, prosecutors showed several text messages that Adovasio sent to her husband, telling him that she could not ‘take it anymore” and was filing for divorce and that he should get a lawyer.

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By STEPHANIE BERZON AND RYAN SIT

Three prisoners recently extradited from Britain pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to various terrorism charges in Manhattan Federal Court.

Among the charges were attempting to establish a terrorist training camp in Oregon, “facilitating violent Jihad in Afghanistan,” and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction.

Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, Adel Abdel Bary and Khaled al Fawwaz face multiple life terms after extradition from Britain on Saturday with two other terrorist suspects who are awaiting trial in New Haven.

Extremist Islamic cleric Mustafa – widely known as “Abu Hamza” – remained seated as Judge Katherine B. free run 6 femmes Forrest entered the courtroom. His Metropolitan Correctional Center scrubs exposed scar tissue covered arms, which extend into stumps. Mustafa lost both hands and his left eye when explosive devises he was assembling accidentally detonated.

Before he arrived in Manhattan, Mustafa, 54, had been using a prosthetic hook as his right hand. “He’s having a hard time. He has no hands,” said his court-appointed defense attorney Jeremy Schneider.

Schneider said that they would be looking into getting Mustafa prosthetic limbs.

Mustafa faces 11 counts, which together carry a maximum sentence of two life terms and 100 years imprisonment. Included in the indictment was the taking of hostages in Yemen in December 1998 when he allegedly acted as an intermediary for hostage-takers who stormed an SUV and took 16 hostages by force, including two U.S. nationals, to compel the Yemen government to meet their demands.

The following October Mustafa discussed creating a Jihad – or holy war – training camp in Bly, Ore., with Oussama Abdullah Kassir, Haroon Rashid Aswat and others. alleged the government. Kassir was later tried and convicted of conspiring to kill persons overseas and provide support for terrorists and al Qaeda, among other charges in 2009. Aswat was arrested in 2005 in Zambia, deported to England, and arrested again at the request of the U.S. His extradition is pending in the European Court of Human Rights.

In November 2000, Mustafa helped a co-conspirator find passage to Afghan terrorist training camp through Pakistan, at times using designated safe-houses, court documents indicated.

Four counts against Mustafa allege a direct connection with al Qaeda and the Taliban; that he attempted to supply materials, including stockpiled weapons, to the terrorist organization.

Judge Forrester set trial for August 26.

One hour before Mustafa made his appearance, Bary, 52, and Fawwaz, 50, entered the free run 6 v2 femmes courtroom of Judge Lewis A. Kaplan where they were charged with conspiring with al Qaeda members to kill United States nationals.

Bary faced additional charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and other offenses in connection to the 1998 bombings of U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed a total 224 and injured thousands more. He was charged with 284 criminal counts, carrying a maximum sentence of 283 life terms plus 15 years in prison. Fawwaz faced four counts, each with a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Their trail was set for October 7, 2013.

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