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Judge refuses to dismiss charge against Barack Obama assassination plotter

Thursday, March 26, 2009

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A federal judge refused to dismiss a charge against an Arkansas man accused of plotting to assassinate Barack Obama.

Paul Schlesselman, 18, argued the threats against Obama were not a "true threat" under the law because they were made during questioning by law enforcement officials while he was in custody, and he could not have carried them out.

Judge J. Daniel Breen rejected the argument, claiming he could not go beyond the facts outlined in the indictment. "Due to the limited information available to the court, the bulk of the defendant's argument is unsupported by applicable facts," Breen wrote in a statement.

A photo of Paul Schlesselman from his MySpace profile.

Schlesselman, of West Helena, and Daniel Cowart, 20, of Bells, Tennessee, are accused of plotting to kill dozens of black people during a murder spree that would end with them attempting to assassinate Obama.

Schlesselman has also filed a motion to suppress evidence collected by police; a hearing on that motion is set to go before Breen on April 16. The court has already rejected a motion by Schlesselman and Cowart to dismiss the charges against them because the racial makeup of the grand jury was predominately African American.

The men have been charged with targeting members of a specific race, conspiracy to rob a federal firearms licensee and possession of a sawed-off shotgun.


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  This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.


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