Author: Jen McCaffery
Publication: The Roanoke Times,
Virginia
Date: December 1, 2001
Purchase was illegal for convicted
felon 2 guilty of plot to buy pistols
Authorities say the man is linked
to a radical group, though that didn't come up during trial.
Lynchburg - The jurors never heard
the words Al-Fuqra.
They did not hear that Vincente
Pierre has been linked by federal authorities to Al-Fuqra, a radical Islamic
group whose members have been convicted of the firebombing of a Hare Krishna
temple in Colorado, and the murder of an imam in Tucson. They did not hear
that Pierre pleaded guilty in Colorado in 1993 to workers' compensation
fraud in an Al-Fuqra scheme.
Instead, Pierre and his wife, Traci
Upshur, were tried on evidence that Pierre, a convicted felon, arranged
for his wife to buy firearms for him because it was illegal for him to
possess them. Unlike at Pierre's detention hearing, the evidence presented
against him at his trial did not hint at Pierre's past.
The jury found the evidence convincing
enough to convict the couple, who have eight children, of conspiring to
buy two handguns for Pierre. Pierre, 44, and Upshur, 37, were convicted
of conspiracy and making false statements. Pierre was convicted of six
counts, and Upshur was convicted of four counts and was found not guilty
on a fifth count of making false statements on another occasion.
They face up to five years on each
count at their sentencing, scheduled for April.
Federal prosecutor Tom Bondurant
said he brought up the Al-Fuqra link at Pierre's detention hearing because
he argued that Pierre was a flight risk and a danger to the community.
But he did not bring it up at the trial because "we had no basis to bring
it up. His association with any group has nothing to do with this case."
He declined to say whether he thought
any other community members were being investigated. Members of the group
have denied any connection to terrorist activity in the past and pointed
out that Muslims were killed in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Pierre
and Upshur declined to comment after the verdict, as did some of their
supporters in the courtroom.
Susan Fenger, a retired former chief
criminal investigator on the case in Colorado, was on hand for the trial
and talked about Al-Fuqra. She investigated Pierre in the Colorado case.
Pierre was sentenced to probation after his conviction.
Fenger said the leader of the group,
Sheikh Jilani, had been met with terrorist organizations in Sudan in 1993.
She said the group is still active.
"Its main focus is to purify Islam
through force or violence," she said.
The group "paints a face to the
public that they are peaceful people," Fenger said. "But that's all a front.
Al-Fuqra is set up to defraud various agencies."
The jury found Pierre guilty Friday
of conspiring with his wife to buy .45-caliber handguns for him at a shop
called the Outpost, outside Appomatox. Pierre would order and pay for the
weapons, while Upshur would sign the paperwork. John Massarini, a retired
police chief from New Jersey who owns the Outpost, assisted Special Agent
Thomas Gallagher of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms with the
investigation.
The defendants' case was likely
damaged when Upshur took the stand and said she was buying the handguns
for herself, even though she displayed little familiarity with the workings
of the weapons and admitted she had never fired a gun. Upshur testified
that she bought the gun for self-defense, then testified that she kept
it at the home of someone else in the community.
Pierre, who Bondurant argued gave
a fake name of Rafael Upshur at the gun shop, did not take the stand.
Defense lawyers Thomas Wray of Roanoke
and Gary Smith and Carter Foulds of Winchester attacked Massarini for discrepancies
in his testimony and about whether he assumed Rafael's last name was Upshur
because that was his wife's name or whether Pierre told him that.
Gallagher said he was also assisting
with another Al- Fuqra case in California, involving the death of a police
officer.
