Boston (CNN) -- A federal jury on Monday found a friend of
Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev guilty of obstructing the
investigation into the 2013 attack.
The jury found Azamat Tazhayakov guilty
of obstructing justice and conspiring to obstruct justice, in connection with
the removal of a backpack with potential evidence from Tsarnaev's dorm room
after the bombings.
Jurors indicated in a
verdict questionnaire that they didn't believe a separate allegation --
involving the removal of a laptop computer from the same dorm room -- amounted
to obstruction or conspiracy.
But his attorneys said they'll
appeal the verdict, maintaining that a different defendant was the one who removed
the backpack and put it into a garbage bin, and that the jury was under
pressure by a community upset by the bombings to find Tazhayakov guilty.
"He never took a backpack
out of the dormitory. ... We will certainly push that the evidence, and my client's
intent did not match up with the actions of the case," Tazhayakov attorney
Mathew Myers told reporters Monday.
Sentencing for Tazhayakov, who
could get up to 25 years in prison, is scheduled for October. The verdict came
in the first trial related to the April 15, 2013, bombings that killed three people and injured
more than 200 others.
Tazhayakov's mother wept loudly
in court when the verdict was read. Tazhayakov spoke briefly to his parents
before he was escorted out of the courtroom.
Prosecutors accused Tazhayakov
and his roommate, fellow Kazakh national Dias Kadyrbayev, of trying to protect
Tsarnaev three days after the bombings by removing a backpack and a laptop from
Tsarnaev's dorm room at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, which
Tazhayakov also attended.
Prosecutors alleged that
Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov took the laptop to their apartment, and that
Kadyrbayev, with Tazhayakov's knowledge, tossed the backpack in a trash bin.
Authorities eventually found the backpack -- containing Vaseline, a thumb drive
and fireworks -- in a landfill.
Kadyrbayev is awaiting trial on
the same charges and has pleaded not guilty. Another friend, Robel Phillipos,
pleaded not guilty to making false statements. None of Tsarnaev's friends is
accused in the bomb plot itself.
Prosecutors:
Friends knew suspects' identities before public
Prosecutors told jurors
Tazhayakov knew the identity of the suspected bombers -- Tsarnaev and his older
brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev -- before the public found out, allegedly texting
Kadyrbayev, "i think they got his brother," hours before the public
knew their names or their relationship to one another.
The friends recognized the
Tsarnaev brothers after authorities released video and still photos asking for
the public's helping finding the two men, prosecutors said.
Kadyrbayev told his friends that
he believed Dzhokhar Tsarnaev "used the Vaseline 'to make bombs,' or words
to that effect," an indictment against him reads.
The government said Tsarnaev
texted Kadyrbayev after the bombings and told him he could go to his dorm room
and take what he wanted. Kadyrbayev showed that text to Tazhayakov, the
government alleged.
Authorities alleged that the
friends picked up the backpack and the laptop from Tsarnaev's dorm room on
April 18, 2013, shortly before Tsarnaev was taken into custody.
The FBI interviewed the friends
as part of the bombing investigation, and lawyers for Tazhayakov said he did
everything he could to help the probe when he spoke with investigators. Based
on that information, authorities found Tsarnaev's backpack in the landfill, his
attorneys said.
Juror:
Friends were
'getting rid of evidence'
Daniel Antonino, one of the
jurors in Tazhayakov's case, said the panel found him guilty of obstruction
because "the backpack was simply taken and discarded like they were
getting rid of evidence."
"They just threw it in the
trash, so that's obstructing justice. Just taking it from the dorm room, we
felt, was obstructing justice," Antonino said.
Antonino said the jury didn't
feel the same way about the laptop, because "they didn't destroy it,"
and because jurors felt the friends saw the laptop as something they should
take for its potential monetary value. Antonino cited Tsarnaev's alleged text
to Kadyrbayev, inviting him to take what he wanted.
Myers, Tazhayakov's attorney,
said his client was being unfairly punished for what Kadyrbayev is alleged to
have done. The only thing Tazhayakov took from Tsarnaev's room, Myers said, was
a pair of headphones that rightfully belonged to him.
"I understand we've spoken
about pronouns in this case: 'They did this, they did that.' (But) my client
did not leave that dorm room with a backpack," Myers said. "He can
only control what people do to a certain extent. ... 'They' did not do
anything.
"Dias Kadyrbayev went and
took that backpack to a Dumpster. My client wasn't part of that. How a jury
claims that my client had intent to do that with Dias, I guess, is a
misconstruing of the plain evidence."
Myers said his team also would
object to the court's verdict questionnaire, which asked for both charges
whether Tazhayakov should be found guilty because of the backpack, the laptop
or both.
Myers said the jurors might have
thought that saying no to the laptop was significant -- perhaps thinking they
were giving Tazhayakov a break -- when in fact it did no such thing.
"We knew that could be
misleading to the jury," Myers said.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev awaits trial,
having pleaded not guilty to 30 federal charges tied to the bombing and the
subsequent pursuit of him and his brother, Tamerlan.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev died in a
shootout with police days after the bombing.
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