Texas Congressman Won’t Say Why He Labeled Opponent ‘Indo-American Carpetbagger’
Patrick Stein’s attorneys also said he learned about the Quran “from the internet and conservative talk-show hosts such as Sean Hannity and Michael Savage.”
WASHINGTON ― Attorneys for a President Donald Trump supporter who was convicted in a domestic terrorism plot aimed at slaughtering Muslim refugees asked a federal judge to factor in the “backdrop” of Trump’s campaign rhetoric when deciding their client’s sentence this week.
Patrick Stein was one of three right-wing militiamen found guilty in April of a conspiracy to kill Muslim refugees living in rural Kansas. Ahead of the 2016 election, Stein and two others plotted with an FBI informant and an undercover agent to bomb an apartment complex that housed Muslims in Garden City. Stein went by the handle “Orkin Man” and referred to Muslims as “cockroaches” he wanted exterminated.
At trial, defense attorneys referred to the defendants as “knuckleheads” who were engaged in “locker room talk,” and Stein’s attorney argued his client was a victim of a “chaos news” environment that had him thinking a civil war was coming.
A jury convicted Stein and his co-defendants, Curtis Allen and Gavin Wright, on weapons of mass destruction and conspiracy against civil rights charges. They are scheduled to be sentenced Friday, a week after another Trump supporter was arrested for mailing bombs to the president’s critics and a right-wing extremist killed 11 Jewish Americans inside of a Pittsburgh synagogue. The government said it is seeking life sentences for all three defendants.
Stein’s attorneys, James Pratt and Michael Shultz, argued Monday in a sentencing memo that sending Stein to prison for life was unwarranted and that a sentence of 15 years would be appropriate. They said the judge should factor in the “backdrop to this case” when crafting an appropriate sentence.
“2016 was ‘lit.’ The court cannot ignore the circumstances of one of the most rhetorically mold-breaking, violent, awful, hateful and contentious presidential elections in modern history, driven in large measure by the rhetorical China shop bull who is now our president,” they wrote.
