April 28, 2006
St. Petersburg Times
Unsealed transcripts of court hearings tell the story of the plea deal.
By Meg Laughlin

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TAMPA – For months after Sami Al-Arian’s terrorism-related trial, there were rumors of secret negotiations between federal prosecutors and defense attorneys. But no one, besides the judge and those involved in constructing a plea deal, knew exactly what was going on.

Then, suddenly, on April 14, Associated Press wrote that Al-Arian would be deported under terms of a secret deal, setting off a mad scramble among journalists to find out more.

Transcripts of court hearings, just unsealed, tell the story.

Monday, April 17, U.S. District Judge James S. Moody held a closed-door hearing to discuss the leak and what to do about it. Federal prosecutor Terry Zitek entered the courtroom with the Tampa Tribune in hand.

It seemed, said Zitek, Al-Arian’s attorney Bill Moffitt had blabbed about what was in the plea deal. “Comments of a former defense attorney of Dr. Al-Arian” made the secret deal no longer secret, Zitek said.

Wait a minute, said Al-Arian’s attorney Linda Moreno, who joined in the hearing by phone. It wasn’t Moffitt who leaked the deal.

Silvestrini told the St. Petersburg Times, Thursday, that she told Moffitt this: “AP has moved a story quoting sources that there had been a plea agreement.” She said she did not tell Moffitt the government leaked the deal.

At the April 17 hearing, Moreno gave her own version of how the leak occurred. “Your Honor, Friday morning, around 11 a.m. I received a call from an AP reporter who indicated to me that he had two Washington, D.C., official sources who had leaked provisions and portions of the plea agreement.”

Moreno said she was “quite baffled by this particular information” and “did not comment to the AP reporter.”

But, now that portions of the deal were out, she said, she agreed with government attorneys that it was time to make the whole thing public.