The final day of evidence in the NATO 3 trial ended with jurors hearing from an explosives expert that the three out-of-state men charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism had built four functional Molotov cocktails that could kill a police officer.
Defense attorneys continued trying to portray Brian Church, Jared Chase and Brent Betterly as dim-witted braggarts who talked big but were incapable of doing anything, including a planned attack to use a slingshot and marbles to break windows at President Barack Obama’s campaign headquarters in a secure Loop tower in 2012.
Jurors, some appearing a bit bemused, looked on as an undercover police officer removed a small wooden slingshot from a clear plastic evidence bag and testified that no marbles were recovered from the Bridgeport apartment where the men were staying.
In his third day on the witness stand, Officer Mehmet Uygun testified he and his undercover partner, Nadia Chikko, gave Church, who was underage, at least three beers. Chikko also once had to drive Church’s car after Church asked who was sober, Uygun said.
Uygun also acknowledged his earlier testimony that Church had referred to making a pipe bomb was the first time he’d made that claim. While Church never used the words “pipe bomb,” he had asked during a conversation about damaging windows if the undercover officers could get some metal pipes because “we don’t have any (blasting sound) type (expletive).” He made a noise similar to an explosion or a window breaking.
Police bomb technician Yvens Augustin testified Tuesday the four Molotov cocktails — made from beer bottles filled to the neck with gasoline and stuffed with cut-up bandannas as wicks — were functional incendiary devices.
Augustin also read to jurors a handwritten set of instructions for making a pipe bomb that had been found on a table covered with papers in the Bridgeport apartment. The defendants did not write the note, and it was never tested for fingerprints, according to an agreed stipulation read to jurors.
The explosives expert told jurors the instructions would allow someone to build a pipe bomb that could “essentially kill or cause severe damage” to bystanders. Augustin also told jurors that the four Molotov cocktails could “cause fatal injuries” or destroy a police car.
Under questioning from defense attorney Sarah Gelsomino, Uygun acknowledged that the defendants and Chikko were laughing on undercover recordings while Chase talked about filling his trench coat with Molotov cocktails and pushing a shopping cart full of explosives toward police at a protest. But he said he thought Chase was serious.
“They might have thought it was funny, but it wasn’t funny to me,” he testified.
The day ended with Judge Thaddeus Wilson denying a defense motion to throw out the terrorism counts before the case goes to the jury.
Before ruling, Wilson read a quote attributed to Church — “Chicago will never be the same” — three times and said that was the backdrop he was viewing the motion under.
“Chicago is not just an empty city or vessel,” he said. “It’s full of thousands — millions of people, citizens, visitors. That’s Chicago.
“… The officers who are the first line of defense for these citizens and visitors — if that happens, that’s terror,” the judge said of the threat of the Molotovs. “I don’t need to look in a dictionary to see what someone’s response to that would be. That’s terror.”
Wilson said he was concerned about some of the evidence against Betterly and Church but the evidence “no matter how slight or thin” was sufficient for jurors to decide their fate.
Church’s attorney, Michael Deutsch, argued that prosecutors had failed to prove the three defendants had the intent to “intimidate or coerce a significant portion of the population” as required under the state’s terrorism statute.
“It’s disastrous from a civil liberties standpoint to let a case this weak go before a jury,” added Thomas Anthony Durkin, one of Chase’s attorneys.
Assistant State’s Attorney Yvette Loizon told the judge he needed to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the state and said the evidence clearly showed the three men were intent on sending a violent message when Chicago had the world’s attention during the NATO summit.
“They’re trying to send their message while everyone is watching,” she said. “Anyone who sees a police officer on fire is going to be intimidated.”
sschmadeke@tribune.com
Twitter:@SteveSchmadeke