Accused bomber Ahmad Rahimi can not get an impartial jury in Union County for charges he shot at police, his lawyer says.
ELIZABETH -- When 21 people were picked for a grand jury last November to hear evidence about the shootout in which accused bomber Ahmad Kahn Rahimi was arrested, less than half the jurors recognized his name, prosecutors say.
The shootout with Linden police in which two officers were wounded, occurred two months earlier, and grabbed national headlines, but most of the grand jury members had not heard of media coverage of the case, Union County Assistant Prosecutors Ann Luvera and Stephen Kaiser said in papers filed in court.
"Of the 21 people, only nine people recognized the defendant's name or heard about the case from media coverage," the prosecutors said in their legal brief that was filed to a oppose a defense attorney's motion for change of venue.
Rahimi's attorney, Deputy Public Defender Peter Liguori, filed a brief to move the trial, contending his client received more news coverage than any other case in the northeast over the last four years, making it impossible for him to get a fair trial in Union County.
The 28-year-old Rahimi faces federal charges for bombs that exploded in the Chelsea section of Manhattan and in Seaside Park on Oct. 17, 2016, and is charged on the state level with five counts of attempted murder for the shootout with five Linden police officers on Oct. 19, 2016. A total of 29 people were injured in the New York City bombing.
Authorities charge Rahimi also put several bombs in a trash can in Elizabeth. Those bombs discovered by two homeless men who notified police. One bomb detonated when police used a robot to dismantle it.
Liguori, in his brief argued that national newspapers and television broadcasts reported of Rahimi becoming 'radicalized' and how his father contacted the FBI about his son years earlier, among other details.
The defense attorney said elected office holders used the bombings and shootout for political purposes, and that Rahimi's family had a prominent restaurant in Elizabeth.
When prosecutors begin presenting the case to the grand jury on Nov. 16, two people were excused, one because she knew Rahimi personally and had frequented Rahimi's family restaurant on Elmora Avenue in Elizabeth, and the other because he knew of the Rahimi family's lawsuit againt the city, the prosecutors say in their brief.
The grand jury indicted Rahimi on five counts of attempted murder
Prosecutors, however, argue the hearings demonstrated that few people were familiar with details of the case.
"Given that less than half the grand jurors were familiar with the media coverage, which was much more pervasive two months after the incidents occurred .... , defendant's argument that a fair and impartial jury cannot be empaneled in Union County must fail," Luvera and Kaiser state in their brief.
Most of the news reports cited by Liguori, the prosecutors say, were from statewide or national news sources, not local media outlets. The news coverage, they said, "has largely been factual and reported on a state and national scale, not a local level."
"Because there is no evidence that the residents of Union County perceive themselves as targets of terrorism, it is proper for the venue to remain here," the prosecutor conclude.
In their brief, prosecutors outline details about the shooting, including that one officer, Peter Hammer, was hit in the head with bits of glass and bullet fragments, and had blood running down his face and his chased Rahimi. Also, Rahimi allegedly reloaded his gun during the shootout, and that after he was wounded and arrested, police found a notebook in his pants pocket.
A federal complaint against Rahimi stated he was arrested with a journal that praised Osama bin Laden.
Lawyers for Rahimi in the federal case, asked a judge on Wednesday to move his trial to Vermont to avoid the possibility potential jurors have been influenced by prejudicial publicity about the case.
Superior Court Judge Karen Cassidy is scheduled to hear oral arguments on the change of venue motion in state court in May.
Tom Haydon may be reached at thaydon@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @Tom_HaydonSL. Find NJ.com on Facebook.