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by 9x39 29 days ago
>What crime are zines evidence of?

Not quite the right framing.

Look at the chain of events in the probable cause affidavit:https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txnd.41...

Rueda was in the jail following arrest in an armed group after a firefight at the detention center where 20-30 rifle rounds had been fired, with a police officer killed as a result.

In jail, Rueda called her mother to contact Sanchez because he would know what was going on. Rueda later directly called Sanchez and said, 'whatever you need to do, move whatever you need at the house'. Sanchez indicated to Rueda he had already been to her house.

Sanchez was then observed leaving his house with zines and was observed moving the zines to an apartment of someone else's. The zines were the same TTPs for anti-gov, anti-LE civil unrest topics as seen before and thus considered likely to be connected.

All in all, moving evidence from an investigation involving armed groups engaging in firefights with ICE isn't a stretch once we don't omit the facts known.

2 comments

At worst, the zines are evidence of Rueda's political opinions. They are not evidence of conspiracy to set off fireworks near the compound, nor shoot an officer.
Prosecutors were successful in using them as evidence of connection between the members, and as a result of building that connection partly through the zines, held them jointly accountable for the groups overall actions.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txnd.41...

You will notice that the criticism this judgement receives if not for finding Song guilty, even if the sentence is inordinately long for a non-lethal crime with minor wider repercussions.

The criticism this judgement receives is the fact that the prosecutors and judge drew these lines of association into a "terrorist organization" so much that even merely possessing literature tangentially related to this non-existent "organization" was deemed a crime worthy of 30 years imprisonment. This is the sort of thinking that sent people to the Soviet Gulags.

I do see the criticism, but those critics appear made unwilling to accept that material support to other bad actors snares one in their web. No people were punished for mere possession, you or I could possess those zines and even email the prosecution about it.

This shouldn’t be such a leap, but rationalizing is what it is.

The hefty punishments are principally from the punishment enhancements meted out for the alleged terrorist label, firearms, wounded police, etc that overflow from the chief perpetrators onto those caught in the web through membership and their support.

Perhaps hiding evidence should be merely hiding evidence, not hiding evidence in the burying of a highly political prosecution where someone is catching life plus cancer, yet here we are.

Not killed, wounded.
Thank you, that’s right.