Kansas jury has case of 3 men accused of plotting to bomb Somalis

FILE - This combination of Oct. 14, 2016, file booking photos provided by the Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office in Wichita, Kan., shows from left, Patrick Stein, Curtis Allen and Gavin Wright, three members of a Kansas militia group who were charged with plotting to bomb an apartment building filled with Somali immigrants in Garden City, Kan. The jury in their trial returns to the courtroom on Tuesday, April 17, 2018, to get final instructions and to hear arguments before getting the case for deliberation. (Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office via AP, File)
FILE - This combination of Oct. 14, 2016, file booking photos provided by the Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office in Wichita, Kan., shows from left, Patrick Stein, Curtis Allen and Gavin Wright, three members of a Kansas militia group who were charged with plotting to bomb an apartment building filled with Somali immigrants in Garden City, Kan. The jury in their trial returns to the courtroom on Tuesday, April 17, 2018, to get final instructions and to hear arguments before getting the case for deliberation. (Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office via AP, File)

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - Jurors began deliberating Tuesday afternoon in the case against three Kansas militia members accused of scheming to bomb a mosque and apartment complex housing Somalis.

During closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Mattivi credited another militia member for alerting authorities, calling Dan Day the "one man standing between these three defendants and apartment complex full of innocent people."

Curtis Allen, Patrick Stein, Gavin Wright face charges of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and conspiracy against civil rights. Wright also faces a charge of lying to the FBI.

The government has argued the men formed a splinter group of the militia Kansas Security Force that came to be known as "the Crusaders." The three men were indicted in October 2016 for an attack planned for the day after the Presidential election in the meatpacking town of Garden City, 220 miles west of Wichita. The government has said the men wanted to "exterminate cockroaches," saying they wanted to send the message Muslims are not welcomed.

Prosecutors played a jailhouse conversation in which Stein tells his mother, "We were (expletive) infiltrated, mom."

Day was "the one militia member who decided to do the right thing," Mattivi said.

Not only did Day alert authorities to the escalating talk of violence, but he agreed to secretly record months of conversations. There were times he was scared for his life, but couldn't live with himself if that apartment building got blown away, Mattivi told jurors.

"The heart of that hero is the heart of this case," Mattivi said.

But defense attorneys tried to cast doubt on Day's credibility as an informant who was paid more than $32,000 during the investigation. It was Day who suggested the apartment complex as the target, and the FBI picked it because it was a rental property that would allow the government to claim federal jurisdiction in the case, said Melody Brannon, the attorney representing Allen.

"Make no mistake there was a conspiracy - it's just not the one the government wants you to believe," Brannon said. "There was indeed a conspiracy but the conspiracy was between Patrick Stein, Dan Day and the FBI."

Brannon told jurors the government was "investigating for the conviction, not for the truth."

She urged jurors not to trust a paid informant who chose the target, asking them to return a not guilty verdict "to tell the government that their evidence and their tactics are too untrustworthy."

Defense attorney Jim Pratt, who represents Stein, told jurors the other militia members who had not alerted authorities didn't so not because they were scared but because they knew the men were just venting and didn't take their words seriously.

"All words, not action," he said.

Day and the government gave Stein a sense of purpose and allowed him to continue down a path they created for him to build chargeable offenses, Pratt said.

"It is not morally right to hold such hate, but it is not legally wrong," Pratt said. "We all have the right to hate."