Dec 10, 2007 7:56 pm US/Eastern
Bronx Man First Punished Under Anti-Terrorism Law
Controversy Brews As Mexican Immigrant Gets 40 Years In Gang Shooting
Reporting
Lou Young
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Edgar Morales became the first man punished under New York's anti-terrorism law after a 10-year-old girl was killed in a shooting caused by the gang he was apparently a member of.
CBS
A Bronx man involved in a shooting that left a 10-year-old girl dead in 2002 has become the first man to be punished under a law meant to stop Al Qaeda, but is instead being used to target local gangs.
Edgar Morales, 25, was sentenced Monday to at least 40 years behind bars for a Bronx gang attack designated as an act of terrorism. Some say the state is overreaching, but the surviving victims don't think so.
Morales, a former construction worker, doesn't belong to Al Qaeda or the Taliban. He was part of a group, according to district attorney Robert T. Johnson, called the St. James Boys -- a group of Mexican immigrants who formed a gang that preyed on other Mexican immigrants in the west Bronx.
On the night of the crime in question, Aug. 18, 2002, Morales and the other gang members came to the basement of St. Paul's Lutheran Church to a christening they were not invited to. A violent fight ensued, and what happened next, Johnson says, was a kind of terrorism the community deserves to be free of.
The 10-year-old victim, Malenny Mendez, was accidentally shot in the melee and another man was paralyzed from the shots. All of the gang members escaped, leaving Morales to hold the bag. He became the first person to be tried and punished under the state's 2001 anti-terrorism statute.
His lawyer says the 40-year sentence may not stand up.
"I think we have a very good chance of having the terrorism charge found unconstitutionally applied in this case," said Dino Lombardi, Morales' attorney.
In a statement last year when the trial began, Johnson explained why Morales deserved to be tried under the statute. "The obvious need of this statute is to protect society against acts of political terror. However, the terror perpetrated by gangs, which all too often occurs on the streets of New York, also fits squarely within the scope of this statute."
On the street though, there's little sympathy for Morales' legal dilemma.
"Whatever you get, you deserve because that could have been my daughter or anyone's child, and for you to shoot recklessly, you get what you deserve. That's just how I feel," said Garrett Shaw, who witnessed the shooting in 2002.
Morales is scheduled to be shipped upstate on Jan. 8th. The judge said that he could remain in the city's prison through the holidays, which would allow him one last visit with his child before beginning his term for what would essentially be a life sentence.
But in a case that may change the way we look at terrorists, the impact of the sentence could last even longer.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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