Black rights activists convicted of conspiracy, not guilty of acting as Russian agents

TAMPA, Fla. -- Four Black rights activists were convicted Thursday in Florida federal court of conspiring to act as unregistered Russian agents.

Jurors deliberated all day Wednesday and returned the guilty verdicts late Thursday morning, the Tampa Bay Times reported. The conspiracy charges carry up to five years in prison. No sentencing date has been set.

All four of those convicted are or were affiliated with the African People’s Socialist Party and Uhuru Movement, which has locations in St. Petersburg, Florida, and St. Louis.

They include Omali Yeshitela, the 82-year-old chairman of the U.S.-based organization focused on Black empowerment and the effort to obtain reparations for slavery and what it considers the past genocide of Africans. Also convicted were Penny Hess, 78, and Jesse Nevel, 34, two leaders of branches of the group’s white allies. A fourth defendant, Augustus C. Romain Jr., 38, was kicked out of the Uhurus in 2018 and established his own group in Atlanta called The Black Hammer.

Yeshitela, Hess and Nevel had also been charged with the more serious crimes of acting as agents of a foreign government, but jurors found them not guilty of those charges.

Attorneys finished their closing arguments late Tuesday. The trial had been scheduled to last a month but moved quickly, concluding after a week of testimony.

Prosecutors said the defendants knowingly partnered with the Russian government to help the Kremlin sow political discord and interfere in U.S. elections.

Defense attorneys argued that Aleksandr Ionov, who runs an organization known as the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, concealed from the Uhurus his relationship with Russian intelligence. The attorneys also called the government's case “dangerous” for the First Amendment and asserted that the government was trying to silence the Uhurus for expressing their views.

Three Russians, two of whom prosecutors say are Russian intelligence agents, are also charged in the case but have not been arrested.

Although there are some echoes of claims that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, U.S. District Judge William Jung previously has said those issues were not part of this case.

Prosecutors have said the group's members acted under Russian direction to stage protests in 2016 claiming Black people have been victims of genocide in the U.S. They also alleged that the members took other actions for the following six years that would benefit Russia, including opposition to U.S. policy in the Ukraine war.

The defense attorneys, however, have said that despite their connections to the Russian organization, the actions taken by the African People's Socialist Party and Uhuru Movement were aligned precisely with what they have advocated for in more than 50 years. Yeshitela founded the organization in 1972 as a Black empowerment group opposed to vestiges of colonialism around the world.