By Kathy Wray Coleman, Publisher, Editor-n-Chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper
CLEVELAND, Ohio-Three young White men that were active in the Occupy Cleveland movement who previously pleaded guilty to plotting to bomb Route 82 bridge in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park in April in Sagamore Hills between Cleveland and Akron, Oh. with dummy explosives provided by an FBI informant were sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Court Judge David Dowd Jr. to prison terms below what prosecutors had requested.
Akron is a city some 35 miles south of Cleveland.
Brandon Baxter, 21, of Lakewood, Oh., was sentenced to 9 years and 9 months in prison and Connor Stephens, 21, of Berea, Oh., received an 8 year prison sentence.
Ring Leader Douglas White, 27, of Indianapolis, In., was handed a sentence of 11 and 1/2 years in prison.
Federal prosecutors had requested 19 to 30 years but Dowd, a federal district judge out of the Northern District of Ohio in Cleveland, opted for lesser time.
A fourth suspect, Anthony Hayne, 35, of Cleveland, has not yet been sentenced after pleading guilty in July and agreeing to help prosecutors.
Fifth suspect Joshua Safford, 23, of Cleveland, is undergoing psychiatric analysis and his case is still pending.
The guilty pleas earlier this year from those sentenced came after former pleas of not guilty and claims by defense attorneys, including Stephens defense attorney Terry Gilbert of Cleveland, that the men were victims of a sting by federal authorities at the hands of paid FBI informant Shaquille Azir, 39, who found them housing and fed them food and drugs.
That alleged sting, defense attorneys once said, was part of a conspiracy to ruin the thriving Occupy Cleveland movement. And that they did, say community activists.
"Protests are necessary but they need to be peaceful and non-violent," said Larry Bresler, a Cleveland community activist who leads Organize Ohio and the Northeast Ohio Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign. "And yes, I believe that this incident destroyed the Occupy Cleveland movement."
No protests, however, got violent in Cleveland, partly because of a Black mayor who grew up in the ghettos of Cleveland himself, and lives there now with his wife and other family members, and is skilled in dealing with community conflict, no matter how aggressive it might ultimately become.
Baxter's father told reporters that his son was set up and that he is innocent but had to take the plea deal to avoid a potential longer sentence from Judge Dowd on Tuesday.
Prosecutors had originally said they would seek 30 years to life in prison for all three, all self proclaimed anarchists that Occupy Cleveland members said allegedly talked about violence but never acted on it.
From top left to right Connor Stephens, Brandon Baxter and Douglas White
From bottom Anthony Hayne (left) and Joshua Safford.
Shaquille Azir
All five of the men are White and federal prosecutors have been accused of taking advantage of the low IO of at least two of the three sentenced on Tuesday, though at least Stephens is articulate and was a spokesman against illegal foreclosures in Cuyahoga County, Ohio's largest that includes the cities of Cleveland, Shaker Hts, and E. Cleveland, among others.
Other Occupy Cleveland members said that the men have brilliant minds and were targets for protesting against alleged illegal foreclosures and mortgage fraud and associated corruption by several Cuyahoga County foreclosure magistrates and many judges and other public officials of Cuyahoga County, including Cuyahoga County Sheriff Bob Reid.
Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson
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U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH),
Cleveland Ward 14 Councilman Brian Cummins
Second term Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, who was city council president before winning a first term in 2005 and said he will seek re-election to a third term next year, did not return phone calls seeking comment on the demise of the Occupy Cleveland movement or the sentencing by Judge Dowd of Baxter, White and Stephens.
Occupy Cleveland members, below, march in Cuyahoga County, Ohio against illegal foreclosures and mortgage fraud
Occupy Cleveland emerged in Cleveland on Oct. 6, 2011 and marched against city hall, holding additional protests before taking camp on Public Square, though they ended up in a dispute with the mayor and he eventually kicked them off of Public Square, a dispute tempered at first after a federal district court judge said the protesters had a constitutionally protected free speech right to protest but could not sleep there in tents.
Eleven Occupy Cleveland members were arrested last year and charged with misdemeanor crimes including resisting arrest during a peaceful protest over the mayor's refusal to permit the downtown camping and protesting. That protest drew some 300 people, and an array of local and national media, though none of the arrested 11 served jail time and other than a few that got their cases dropped, all took plea deals.
Jackson, who is Black, initially allowed permits for the tents and protests but after the permits expired late in 2011 he wanted them gone, saying Christmas season was coming and the city had other plans for Public Square, a center of the downtown section of the majority Black major metropolitan city of some 400,000 people.
The mayor's spokesperson on Occupy Cleveland told Cleveland Urban News.Com in 2011 shortly after the arrest last year of the Occupy Cleveland 11 that Jackson supports efforts to end foreclosure corruption and mortgage fraud but that he disagrees with the way Occupy Cleveland, a largely White group with most members between the ages of 20 and 35, has gone about doing it.
"Mayor Jackson led Cleveland City Council in passing a predatory lending law long before other cities were even aware of the issues and he sued over banks and mortgage companies for the damages that they caused to Cleveland neighborhoods," said Jackson Chief of Staff Ken Silliman in an interview in 2011. "Since Oct. 6 we have worked with the group members to ensure their constitutional permits but the one bone of contention is that we cannot allow more camping."
What's left of Occupy Cleveland is a municipal level model of Occupy Wall Street, an international movement against corporate greed and malfeasance that was at its peak in 2011 and has become more tame since nationwide protests at its headquarters in New York City and other places like Oakland, CA got violent when police tried to silence protesters.
Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who lost a Democratic primary fight in March to Toledo Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D-9) after their congressional districts were merged by the Ohio State Legislature last year, was a staunch supporter of Occupy Cleveland and so was outspoken Cleveland Ward 14 Councilman Brian Cummins. But when trouble came knocking neither has said much on the group since.
"I support Occupy Cleveland," Kucinich told Cleveland Urban News.Com last year at a stop to visit Occupy Cleveland members at one of their then tents on Public Square in downtown Cleveland.
Reach Cleveland Urban News.Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by phone@216-659-0473
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