Four Black activists associated with the African People’s Socialist Party and Uhuru Movement were convicted on Sept. 12 in a Florida federal court of conspiring to act as unregistered Russian agents.
According to the Associated Press, 82-year-old Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the U.S.-based African People’s Socialist Party, which advocates for Black empowerment and reparations, along with 78-year-old Penny Hess, 34-year-old Jesse Nevel—leaders of the group’s white ally branches—and 38-year-old Augustus C. Romain Jr., a former Uhuru member who later founded Atlanta-based Black Hammer, face up to five years in prison after being found guilty.
The former three were also charged with a more serious crime, acting as agents of a foreign government, but a jury of their peers found them not guilty on that charge. Originally, the trial was set to last a month but was sped up after an entire week of testimony. According to prosecutors, the quartet was accused of partnering with the Kremlin to help Russia create political discord and influence United States elections .
The defense, meanwhile, argued that Aleksandr Ionov hid the nature of his relationship with Russia from the group of defendants and also claimed that the case had dangerous implications for First Amendment rights, saying that the government was attempting to silence them because of their affiliations with activist groups.
Prosecutors also alleged that the defendants were acting under Russian influence when they staged protests asserting that Black people had been the victims of genocide in 2016. They alleged that the members also took positions that were beneficial to the Russian state, such as opposing United States foreign policy concerning the war in Ukraine.
The defense team countered these allegations by asserting that the actions taken by the members of the organizations were consistent with positions they have held for over 50 years, in particular, Yeshitela, who founded the African People’s Socialist Party in 1972 as a Black anti-colonialist empowerment group.
According to a United States Department of Justice press release, between May 2015 and July 2022, Yeshitela, Hess, and Nevel agreed to act on behalf of the Russian government on U.S. soil. In May 2015, Ionov invited Yeshitela on an all-expenses paid trip to “communicate on future cooperation.”
Ahead of this trip, Hess ensured that Ionov could get Yeshitela a meeting with an “official representative of the Russian government.” Subsequent emails revealed that it was “clear” to all parties involved that Ionov was some instrument of the Russian government, and Yeshitela explained that Ionov presented “a method by which the Russian government is engaging the U.S. and Europe in serious struggle” to use “forces inside of the U.S. to s[o]w division inside the U.S.” Yeshitela later explained in a meeting that Ionov was looking only to give resources to actions supporting Russian efforts to “undermin[e] the U.S.”
Although the four have been convicted in federal court, a sentencing date has not been set. The FBI is still investigating the case, and the press release lists Assistant U.S. Attorneys Daniel J. Marcet and Risha Asokan for the Middle District of Florida and Trial Attorney Menno Goedman of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section as the prosecution lawyers.
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