WORCESTER, Mass. - A friend of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been released from federal custody while he awaits trial over accusations he lied to federal investigators probing the April 15 bombings.
Robel Phillipos, 19, was charged last week with lying to investigators about visiting Tsarnaev’s college dorm room after the bombings. The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth student faces a maximum of eight years in prison if convicted.
Prosecutors initially asked that Phillipos be held while he awaits trial, arguing he poses a serious flight risk. But both sides said in a court motion filed Monday they agreed that Phillipos should be released on $100,000 bond, face home confinement and wear an electronic monitoring bracelet.
“We are confident that in the end we will be able to clear his name,” defense attorney Derege Demissie said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney John Capin said documents filed over the weekend by Phillipos’ defense, including many affidavits showing support from family and friends, might be viewed as indirectly questioning the government’s case against Phillipos.
“The government stands by its allegations,” Capin said.
Defense attorney Susan Church described Phillipos as a well-liked, honor-roll student with many friends and supporters. At least 50 relatives, friends and other supporters attended the court hearing.
Church emphasized that Phillipos is not accused of helping Tsarnaev and his brother plan or carry out the bombings.
“At no time did Robel have any prior knowledge of this marathon bombing,” she said.
Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler agreed to the strict house arrest during the hearing Monday afternoon. She told Phillipos he was allowed to leave the house only for meetings with his lawyers or true emergencies.
Phillipos is accused of lying to investigators about visiting Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s college dorm room April 18, three days after the bombings. Two other friends were charged with conspiring to obstruct justice by purportedly taking a backpack with fireworks and a laptop from Tsarnaev’s dorm room. All four had studied at the same college.
Phillipos’ attorneys said in court documents their clienthad nothing to do with the deadly bombings and isn’t a flight risk.
In letters filed with the motion, friends and family members urgedthe court to release Phillipos on bond describing him as peaceful and nonviolent.
“I was shocked and stunned when I heard the news of his arrest. I could not control my tears,” wrote Zewditu Alemu, his aunt. “I do not believe that my beloved Robel crosses the line intentionally to support or assist such a horrendous act against us, the people of the USA. By nature he does not like violence. He loves peaceful environment.”
Later Monday, the administrator of a compensation fund outlined a draft protocol for payments from The One Fund Boston, which was created to help people injured in the twin blasts.
Kenneth Feinberg spoke Monday evening at a town hall meeting at the Boston Public Library, near the blast site, and said the families of those who lost loved ones and victims who suffered double amputations or permanent brain damage would receive the highest category of payment.
Those who received physical injuries and suffered the amputation of a limb will be the next highest priority. The fund has raised $28 million to date.
BURIAL QUANDARY
Meanwhile, a Massachusetts funeral director said Monday that he has received burial offers from out-of-state cemeteries for the body of Tsarnaev’s older brother and purported accomplice, even as Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s mother told him she wants the body returned to Russia, where the brothers were born.
But Worcester funeral home director Peter Stefan said that despite the request, he doesn’t think Russia will take Tsarnaev’s body, and he is working on other arrangements. He declined to be more specific.
Stefan said he plans to ask for a burial in Cambridge, where Tsarnaev lived. But Cambridge City Manager Robert Healy said he is urging Tsarnaev’s family not to make the request, saying that “the turmoil, protests, and widespread media presence” would be difficult for the city’s residents.
Stefan, the owner of Graham Putnam & Mahoney Funeral Parlors in Worcester, said he hasn’t been able to find a cemetery in Massachusetts willing to accept the remains of Tsarnaev, who died after a gunbattle with police four days after the bombings.
Stefan also said he had out-of-state burial offers but refused to give additional details, adding he was worried protests will rise up at any place that agrees to the burial, as they have at his own funeral home.
“Once the neighbors find out who’s coming, they’re going to come out,” he said.
The founder of the organization that built Colorado’s largest mosque, Sheikh Abu-Omar Almubarac, said Monday that he is offering to bury Tsarnaev in a Denver-area Muslim cemetery, as long as his family can get the body to Denver.
If Russia refuses the mother’s request and family members do not wish to send the body out of state, Cambridge may be forced to take it, said Wake Forest University professor Tanya Marsh, an expert in U.S. law on the disposal of human remains.
Massachusetts law requires every community to provide a suitable place to bury its residents, she said. Cambridge’s appeal to the family not to ask it to bury the body is likely a way to set up its defense if the family goes to court to try to force the burial, Marsh said.
“It’s a mess,” she said. “We’re really sort of in uncharted territory.”
Gov. Deval Patrick said Monday that the question of what to do with the body is a “family issue” that should not be decided by the state or federal government. He said family members had “options” and he hoped they would make a decision soon.
He declined to say whether he thought it would be appropriate for the body to be buried in Massachusetts.
“We showed the world in the immediate aftermath of the attacks what a civilization looks like, and I’m proud of what we showed, and I think we continue to do that by stepping back and let the family make their decisions,” the governor said.
But Rep. Edward Markey, the Democratic candidate for the Senate seat that John Kerry vacated when he became secretary of state, said he would oppose such a burial.
“I think that the body should be controlled by the federal government,” Markey said. “But if the people of Massachusetts do not want that terrorist to be buried on our soil, then it should not be.”
Federal officials said they had no jurisdiction or interest in getting involved. An FBI official said the body was no longer needed in the investigation and that the burial was up to the family and the local authorities.
The Tsarnaev brothers are accused of carrying out the bombings using pressure cookers packed with explosives, nails, ball bearings and metal shards. The attack killed three people and injured more than 260 others near the marathon’s finish line.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured and remains in a prison hospital. He has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction and faces a potential death sentence if convicted.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s uncle, Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery Village, Md., has denounced the acts his nephews are accused of committing and said they brought shame to the family and the entire Chechen ethnicity.
But he told reporters he is arranging for Tsarnaev’s burial because religion and tradition call for it. He would like him buried in Massachusetts because Tsarnaev lived in the state for the past decade, he said.
“I’m dealing with logistics. A dead person must be buried,” he said.
KERRY-RUSSIAN TALKS
Meanwhile, Secretary of State John Kerry is to discuss expanding counter terrorism cooperation with Russian leaders in the aftermath of the bombings, a State Department official said.
Kerry will hold talks today in Russia with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, according to the official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity ahead of the private talks. The two sides also will discuss efforts to end the war in Syria, as well as cooperation on Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea and trade.
The United States has received productive assistance from Russian authorities since the bombings and is seeking new ways to cooperate in fighting terrorism, the official said.
Russian intelligence agencies had told the FBI in 2011 that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had become radicalized and asked the U.S. for information about him. The CIA also was provided with the information.
The FBI searched U.S. terrorism and crime databases, conducted interviews and found nothing incriminating, and the Russians didn’t respond to requests for more information, U.S. officials said. Members of Congress have questioned the FBI’s decision to close the inquiry.Information for this article was contributed by Denise Lavoie, Bob Salsberg, Rodrique Ngowi and Jay Lindsay of The Associated Press; by Jess Bidgood and Katharine Q. Seelye of The New York Times; and by Indira A.R. Lakshmanan of Bloomberg News.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 05/07/2013