The Upcoming Death of Jahar Tsarnaev; Let’s Get the Marathon Truth

(L) Deval Patrick, former governor of Massachusetts (C) Anderson Cooper of CNN, Photo: finance yahoo.com (R) Rachel Rollins, former DA for Suffolk County

by Mary W Maxwell, LLB

Well, at least Jahar outlived his bro Tamerlan, who was killed by the FBI at age 26 in the wee hours of APRIL NINETEENTH, 2013. Which occult day will they choose for Jahar’s execution?

I shall now pen a missive to Reginald, a fictitious cousin of mine who represents any American who’s not fully clued in. I realize not every citizen can invest mucho time investigating these things, but I have already done the investigation, and everyone is welcome to freeload off me. At the end, I link the reader to a pdf of my book “Boston’s Marathon Bombing: What Can Law Do?” It contains the text of the RICO lawsuit I filed against the FBI.

Dear Cousin Reginald,

I have been trying for a few years to explain that Jahar (Dzhokhar) Tsarnaev was not involved with the bombing of the 2013 Boston Marathon. He was selected to be the patsy. Patsy-ing has often happened in the USA, but I would have expected the Powers That Be to be afraid to tackle such a university-laden city as Boston with a nonsense story. I guess they are smarter than I am, at estimating the lethargy of the population, or the treason of the intellectuals.

Reg, let me do a quick chronology. As you know, the Marathon takes place every year in Boston, mid-April, with the finish line just outside the Main Library, at 700 Boylston St. The winner crosses that line — he’s usually from Africa — by noon, and the slower runners come in for three more hours. At 2:29 pm on Monday April 15, 2013, two bombs exploded near the finish line, killing three people. The villain was not located. (I’m telling you it was the FBI.)

On Thursday at 5pm, April 18th, FBI local boss Richard DesLauriers said, at a press conference, that two men (he didn’t say “two brothers,” because he was pretending not to recognize them) had been seen on surveillance tape and one of them placed his backpack — “containing the bomb” — near a tree. Thus a big manhunt began for those two men.

Astonishingly, DesLauriers said the public should not look at their own photos taken at the Marathon — as they would be wasting law-enforcement’s time. Reg, I once read that the human brain shuts down in satisfaction as soon as it hears a seemingly sensible explanation for anything! “OK, then, let’s be sure we don’t waste law-enforcement’s time.” Zzz.

The Carjacking and Sequelae

At that 5pm Thursday press conference, Bostonians were told that an armed bomber was on the loose (Jahar, but name suppressed) and folks had better not take chances. By 13 hours later, at 6am Friday, that turned into a robo call from Governor Patrick to all households saying “Shelter in place.” Oh, for cripe’s sake. The FBI, and hence the governor — who previously was a US Attorney at the Department of (I can hardly bear to say this word) Justice, knew there was no armed bomber that would be knocking on anyone’s door.

By 11pm or so, on that Thursday, Tamerlan sallied forth from his Cambridge apartment and allegedly carjacked a parked car (a rented Mercedes SUV) with driver Dun Meng in it. Tam supposedly boasted to Dun Meng that he had not only bombed the Marathon but had just killed a cop (around 10:30pm) at MIT. No killer in his right tree is going to make such a confession to a stranger. Nevertheless, that boast became the basis for the public to learn about this fictional carjacking.

(By the way, Dun Meng, if you’re reading my letter here, feel free to own up to your big sin. I can be reached at MaxwellMaryLLB @gmail.com, and I will plead for you to get amnesty, K?)

As for the dead cop at MIT, that was Sean Collier, age 27. He too was sacrificed, I guess, in order to make this story complete. The evidence for the Tsarnaevs having visited MIT that night is vanishingly small. I believe I saw a headline that an MIT student, Nathan Harman, had witnessed the shooting of Collier but no, he did not claim to see or hear any violence near Collier’s car. Can you imagine!

Also, but this could be of no significance, Sean Collier, this MIT cop, had been protesting the fact that he applied for a job with the Somerville police but learned he had to grease somebody’s palm to get that job. Hilariously, Somerville later created a ceremony to honor their non-employee posthumously. And on that subject, let me tell you that four memorials have now been built outside the BPL, implying that Collier should be included with the Marathon’s three victims.

See, Reginald? Oh, you say you don’t see? Well, I guess they have to keep pounding away about “a fallen cop” to make sure no officer in blue gonna snitch about what he (or she) knows. By the way, Dr Cesar Baruja wrote to President Trump to say that the blood in Collier’s cruise car isn’t real blood. Great! We can test it? Nope, the car was destroyed, in perfectly good condition, by the You-Know-Whom, less than a month after the Marathon. (Destroying evidence is a crime.)

The Shell Station and Its Discontents

So now we’re in the SUV with Tam, age 26, and Dun, age 25, and Bro Jahar, age 19, in the back seat. They left Jahar’s Honda where the carjacking had begun. On the back seat of the Honda is Tamerlan’s high school diploma, in case good ID be needed. Oh, and the wallet of Tam contains, you’d never guess, receipts for a cash purchase, in January, of 5 pressure cookers. One needs pressure cookers to do a bombing, and one sometimes forgets to clean out one’s wallet even when one is afraid of getting arrested, you know.

They stop at an ATM so Jahar can pilfer $800 from Dun’s account. This yields a bank photo of the thief, Jahar. Its bona fides were never questioned. Then they go to a Shell for gas (no receipts for that in the court case!), and Jahar is seen buying snacks for his intended trip to New York Times Square to do some more bombings. You know how those Muslims are, it’s just bomb, bomb, bomb all the time. (Jahar was a sophomore at UMass, Dartmouth.)

We were told that Dun related the plan for NY trip. The press said so, but Dun later admitted that Tam only asked him if the rental of the car was good for out-of-state.

While Jahar was in the Shell station, Danny saw his chance for a dramatic escape. Tam was in the driver’s seat and Dun in passenger seat. Off he runs. There is a surveillance video of a man running, but it does not show where he is running to, and the man is like a shadow, unidentifiable.

A Canadian sleuth named Josee Lepine says the video shows this man disembarking from the driver’s seat — which does not jive with the narrative (passenger seat). Not that the justice system gave a hoot about evidence anyway, as I have been moaning. Are you with me, Cuz?

Dun then reportedly asked the Mobil station manager across the street to call 911. We do have a clear picture of Dun in that shop. Small problem is that his keyring is displayed hanging from his back pocket, but it should have been in the ignition. Oh, I should have granted that the shop surveillance of Jahar buying Dorito’s is not shadowy. It shows a boy of similar looks to Jahar. I guess it could have been taken on some earlier date.

It’s possible that Jahar was involved with FBI. (Jahar has not been allowed to open his yap for the last 8 years so we can’t ask him.) Tam was definitely an informant for FBI, as many non- citizens are coerced to be. Jahar had been naturalized in 2011. The family came in as refugees from Kyrgyzstan in 2001.

The Mom, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, immediately reported that the FBI had visited Tam at the family home several times. The FBI denied it but later admitted it. I believe that the notion that lying is normal has now been seeded into our culture. FBI-types do not worry about getting caught anyway. The DoJ will protect them.

Speaking of that, I wrote to Rachel Rollins when she was the DA of Suffolk County, to point out that she could charge Jahar with a local crime, as a way of getting him out of federal clutches. I sent her my book, The Soul of Boston. No reply. President Biden has recently appointed Ms Rollins as the US Attorney for Massachusetts.

Yes, Cousin Reginald, I will check my brakes in the morning. Thanks for your concern. In my dotage now I don’t really give a hoot. Still, I remain sad that Boston does not do its Paul Revere’s ride thing and save the nation. One if by land (Tam murdered), and two if by sea (Jahar about to be judicially murdered), and with a bit of public fury, what a result there could be!

The Watertown Scene and the Podstava Video

We could start by taking sworn testimony from CNN’s Anderson Coper and his videographer Gabriel Ramirez. Thanks to them, we have absolute proof that Tamerlan was not involved in a shootout, circa 12:35am, on Laurel St Watertown.

The official story is that the Tsarnaev brothers arrived in Watertown in the SUV, and the police knew they were there because the rental SUV had a tracker. (That is perhaps why the story had to include a carjacked RENTAL vehicle.)

It is claimed that the brothers got into a shootout with police on Laurel St, and Jahar even threw an explosive device. At some point, Jahar decided to escape. So he climbed back into the SUV (lets’ assume the key was still in the ignition) and drove away, but first he accidentally ran over his brother.

Per the official story, Tamerlan was near death and so an ambulance was called, and he died in Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital at some time after 1:00am on Friday, April 19, 2013. This was announced by the media at some point before 6:00am. But it can’t be true.

Oops, Reginald dear, did I just hear you think aloud “How is it that my cousin Mary has a bucket of info leading to Jahar’s innocence, but the US Supreme Court has just decided otherwise. Is ol’ Mare some kind of genius or is she in fantasy land.” Ah, Reg, the problem is that the Defense Team did not wish to defend. But we’ll get to that later. (Seems to happen a lot. Did you know that the Public Defender is not a state thing; it is an “arm of the court.”)

A Watertown resident, nicknamed Big Headphones, who lives near Mt Auburn St saw Tamerlan being arrested around 1:05am in healthy condition. The cops had made Tam and another guy lie down on the sidewalk while they frisked them. In the video by Big Headphones, we can see a cop looking through Tam’s wallet and calling out “Yes, this is the one” (or words to that effect.) Then Tam clearly yells “Podstava” Russian for “This is a set-up.”

The cop did not inspect the wallet of the other guy; possibly he was a pal who betrayed Tam by luring him to Watertown. I do not believe the carjacking happened; Tam could have been given a ride by this pal. OK, that’s the Podstava video. There’s a more impressive one taken by CNN’s Gabe Ramirez. It was proudly shown on TV and remained on YouTube for years afterward.

This video shows Tamerlan naked (reproductive organ pixelated), walking with two cops toward a cop car. Tam has no apparent wounds or aftereffects of getting run over. Although the Ramirez video has disappeared, the transcript of it, including chat by Anderson Cooper and Jake Tapper, is still available. They indicate that the Marathon bomber has been caught.

The Substitute Shooter on Laurel Street, Watertown

On January 23, 2018, I gave a lecture at the Watertown Public Library. It was sort of like a moot court trial in which I pretended I was defending Jahar with the above material. Sergeant John McLellan, who had been the supervisor on duty on the night of the Laurel St shootout, was in the audience. He added four pieces to the story. Here they are:

1.
Sergeant McLellan said he saw Tamerlan bleed to death, or almost bleed to death, on Laurel St around 12.35. Note: he gave testimony in court about watching the shootout. I think he really did see such a man but that it was a substitute Tamerlan. I assure you from the Ramirez video of naked Tam, he couldn’t have been bleeding to death 25 minutes earlier.

2.
McLellan also told us that a woman had phoned Cambridge police to say that she witnessed the murder of Sean Collier at MIT. The police invited her to come to the station, but cancelled it as the news was developing of the Laurel St shootout. (Highly implausible that there would be no follow-up on that, eh?)

3.
During the Open mic after my lecture, at which 12 locals spoke, there was controversy about “the naked man.” I am sure that an “extra” was brought in (probably a cop) as soon as the Ramirez booboo became known. This other guy does not look very like Tamerlan but he was placed against a wall and photographed by the FBI. Sgt McLellan told us that this man was asked to take more and more clothes off. McLellan said “maybe he did not speak English.” McLellan (allegedly) wanted to apologize afterword for the stripping and tried unsuccessfully to reach the man via social media. Sorry, but no way would the FBI let a potential suspect get away without having been fingerprinted, DNA’d and generally interrogated in whatever language was needed.

4.
I asked McLellan who did the shooting of 228 bullets at Jahar’s boat (see below.) He said “Outside agencies.” Wow.

In sum, it seems that a guy did do a shootout with police on Laurel St at 12.35am Friday, April 19, 2013. I can only deduce that this was all part of a staged event. It could have been used to kill both Tsarnaev brothers. I think one boy (name unknown) really bled to death. His family must be wondering why he disappeared.

Manhunt and The Boat Scene — 228 Bullets

Probably Jahar was apprehended around the same time the real Tamerlan got arrested as seen in the Podstava video. Jahar could then have been taken, drugged, to the boat in a backyard at 62 Franklin St, waiting for Part Two of the capture on Friday evening. We don’t know.

All day on Friday the 19th, “troops” with guns drawn went around to homes in Watertown, allegedly in a manhunt for Jahar. By 7pm the lockdown was lifted and David Henneberry went out for a smoke. He examined his boat, which was shrink-wrapped, and saw blood. He (or his wife) called 911. Police sent a helicopter with thermal imaging and saw that there was a warm body in the boat and it was not moving. Many police showed up and shot at the boat — officially 228 bullets.

Finally, Jahar appeared from inside. He was apprehended, blood showing in the police photos, and taken to Beth Israel for surgery. One of the special police, Jeff Campbell, talked to a CNN reporter on television: VELEZ-MITCHELL: There’s a report that he was shot in the throat. Unclear whether that was self-inflicted, whether — or at what point — could you tell that?

CAMPBELL: I did see a throat injury. To me it looked more like a knife wound. It wasn’t a puncture hole. It was a slice where it was spread open. Possibly a piece of shrapnel from one of the explosives that they were using the night before. It didn’t look like a bullet wound to me. It looked more like a cut of some kind.

Cousin Reginald, what do you say? Anything to worry about there?

Judicial Business

A magistrate judge came to the hospital to charge Jahar with various crimes.

In 2014, the matter first came before a court when two of Jahar’s classmates were tried for the crime of lying to the FBI and hiding evidence, Dias Kadyyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov. They had been rounded up as soon as Jahar was in custody. They have now served their jail sentences and been deported. One other, Khairullozhon Matanov was arrested later and treated brutally in Plymouth jail, God help us. Another was put under house arrest, Robel Phillipos.

Beginning with jury selection in February 2015, the US District Court trial of Jahar proceeded. He was charged with 30 federal crimes. The jury found him guilty, unanimously, on each charge. He was given the death sentence and has been in Supermax prison in Colorado ever since. His sisters visited him at least once. He is allowed to phone his parents in Dagestan in the Russian Federation. They have been silent, perhaps by coercion, ever since leaving the US after Jahar’s arrest.

Every Death Row person gets an automatic appeal. I did not realize till later that the Defense Team had only appealed the sentence not the conviction. That is, they did not claim he was innocent. At the oral argument for the appeal, which I attended in Boston, the three judges listened to the defense’s argument that Boston had not been the right venue for the trial, owing to public frenzy about the Marathon bombing. It was also claimed that Jahar had been too influenced by Tamerlan and allowances should be made for that.

These three judges, led by retired Chief Judge Juan Torruella, who is no longer alive, came to the decision that the death sentence should be vacated. The government objected and so asked the US Supreme Court to take the case. The nine justices listened again to the argument that Boston had been the wrong venue, and that Tamerlan, not Jahar was the moving force.

As of today, March 4, 2022, the Supreme Court has given its ruling, namely that the death sentence should not be vacated.

Work Not Yet Done

The original trial was scandalous, as I will describe in a moment. And I am not even going to mention the outrageous misinformation that was piled up and up by The Boston Globe and other media. Here I am looking for ways around the finality of today’s ruling. I am thinking of four deaths that I think the FBI should be charged with.

1.
Collier. No likely suspect has ever been named regarding Sean Collier’s death. Jahar was blamed but he is not a likely suspect. I noted above that Sean’s cruiser car was destroyed for no reason. The destroyers are liable for obstruction of justice. The matter of a bribe for police jobs at Somerville should be looked into. Matt Isgur, who is in charge of MIT’s surveillance cameras — 1200 of them! — should be made to show why, in producing a one- hour video for the trial court, he omitted the crucial 5 minutes in which Sean is said to have been shot. Note: Supervising campus cop Sgt Clarence Henniger said he passed by Sean’s car earlier and saw no trouble. The FBI should also be made to say why they were “swarming the campus on an unrelated matter” several hours before Sean’s death.

2.
Tamerlan, naked, was taken into custody in full view of CNN’s videographer, Gabe Ramirez at around 1:00am, Friday April 19, 2013. Even if you could argue that we are wrong about the timing of the Laurel St shootout (12:35am), and that it occurred later, you would have to say that the FBI decided to release the naked, unarmed man and gave him a gun with which to do the Laurel St affair. This is of course ludicrous. Tamerlan’s uncle identified his dead body at hospital. Tam must have been killed by FBI during the hours they had him in custody. They have slipped out of blame by producing the false story of Tam having died in a shootout on Laurel St.

3.
The Substitute Tam. This brings us to the testimony, at trial, by Sgt John McLellan of the Watertown police who describes the shooting that was done by Tamerlan. Since it can’t have been Tamerlan, and since McLellan is not making the whole thing up, it must have been another young man that bled out on Laurel St. How can we not look into this?

4.
Ibragim Todashev. In March 2014 the FBI entered the home of Tamerlan’s friend Ibragim Todashev in Florida. After “interviewing” him for several hours, they shot him dead. They admit this and they say it was in self-defense. The protocol was for Todashev to go to the FBI office to give his statement (allegedly about a triple murder in Waltham Massachusetts). Most likely it was not self-defense but they needed to end Todashev’s life because he had sensitive information.

I know my Constitution and I know that the FBI does not have immunity for crimes it commits. That organization, or specific members, should be charged with the four murders listed above.

I have written to the Massachusetts coroner, Dr Mindy Hull, asking her to look at Numbers 1, 2, and 3.

The Problem of the Three Confessions

The public can be forgiven for thinking that naughty Jahar finally fessed up. He did so in open court, after the death sentence was read out. He apologized for the deaths at the Marathon and the death at MIT. Really, he did say that and expressed remorse. Citizens may not be aware that many convicts give false confessions. They take the rap for someone else, such as in the mafia, to let their family survive, or some other reason. Jahar may have done it if he had been told that his life would be in danger in prison if he did not confess. Who knows?

But we do know that his boat-wall confession is fake. He is said to have penned quite a prayer to God on the fibreglass wall of the boat, using a pencil that was still sharp when found. In the prayer he boasts of what he has done to Americans for what they have done in the Middle East. Had he been shot on Laurel St and was bleeding in the boat before the 228 bullets, he would not have been able to write so neatly. Cousin Reginald, even in good health would you be able to write on fibreglass, legibly, with a pencil?

The third confession, but chronologically the first, was written in a notebook in hospital when he was in bad shape. The FBI is known for producing any document it wants in a persuasive form. I leave you with this bit of skepticism. The FBI were interviewing him at Beth Israel and “had to find out if there were any more jihadi type accomplices out there.” After interviewing this 19-year-old, they concluded that all was safe on the streets of Boston as he had no accomplices. Surely, they knew that, because they knew he was not a real suspect anyway, not because he passed a credibility test. They would never drop the search for accomplices based on a sophomore’s word.

The Problem of the (Non) Defense Team

Any law student attending the original trial could see that the deviations from normal procedure were immense. As soon as the Public Defender, Judy Clarke, began her Opening Statement, she told the jury that Jahar was guilty. She said “It was him.” She then proceeded to let the Prosecution get away with crazy things, such as by not cross-examining Dun Meng’s easily trounced testimony. “Hi Dun, what about that keychain in your back pocket. Had you separated out the car key? If so, when? If so, why?”

Newspapers let this proceed by covering it with a justification: given that the public already knew he was guilty, Judy Clarke would run the defense mildly, to ask only that his life be spared. Hmm. Even law websites parroted that line. Now hear this, Cuz. I’ll bet no one knows it and I’d never have found it but for the Canadian court watcher Josee Lepine. She purchased the transcripts at great price. (Thank you, Josee.)

She found that the Prosecutor composed suggestions for the judge to read as Instructions to the Jury. This is proper, judges need to be reminded of particulars. The Prosecutor, in this case Carmen Ortiz, also sent her suggestions to the Defense team. Carmen Ortiz had included the usual part where the judge should say that the accused pleads Not Guilty to all charges. But — are you sitting down, Reginald? — Defender Judy Clarke crossed that out.

In other words, she, who was Jahar’s hope for getting an acquittal, DID NOT WANT THE JURY

TO REALIZE HE PLEADED NOT GUILTY. What is worse is that Judge George A O’Toole went along with that and did not inform the jury of Jahar’s plea. Here is how effective that was: I, myself, Nosey Parker at Large, also remained ignorant. Until 2017, I thought Jahar had pleaded guilty.

The McCoy Case

Luckily, a case came before the US Supreme Court in 2018, McCoy v Louisiana. The plaintiff, Robert McCoy, who had been convicted of murder, had wanted his lawyer to present his innocence. But the lawyer thought it was best to admit his client’s guilt in hopes of getting a softer sentence. SCOTUS decided that Mr McCoy had the right to declare himself innocent. (Say, hasn’t that been on the law books since Magna Carta in 1215?).

I wrote to the Appeals judge in Boston, Judge Juan Torruella, to make him aware of the new ruling in McCoy. I don’t actually know if that judge got my letter, or read it. I don’t know if it’s in file such that the Supreme Court nine would have seen it. Most of the nine were on the bench when McCoy won his right to call the shots — but they may nor think Jahar’s lawyer had overruled his wishes.

Still, there is great evidence in the file that Jahar tried to reject Judy Clarke and colleagues. That information came in to Judge O’Toole in April 2015 before the death sentence, by way of an affidavit from his aunt. She is a lawyer, Maret Tsarnaeva. She had sat in on one of Judy Clarke’s 13 visits to Russia before the trial. She Judy saw that Jahar’s parents knew that Jahar did not want the Public Defender’s team. But her colleague, William Fick, insisted that Jahar accept it or else Jahar may “find life difficult in prison.” Straight out of a mafia movie, right?

Maret’s letter was also appended to an amicus curiae brief. In November 2017, the court accepted three amici — Dr Cesar Baruja, MD, Philosophy Professor James Fetzer, PhD, and myself. Our counsel was John Remington Graham of the Minnesota bar. We emphasized Aunt Maret’s affidavit. Also, we pointed to exculpatory evidence that was already in file. Namely, the FBI had presented a black backpack as the item that had carried the bomb. But the FBI also presented — as evidence of the Tsarnaev boys attending the 2013 Marathon — a photo in which Jahar is wearing a lighter grey backpack.

Everybody knows that the 1963 case of Brady v Maryland resulted in a SCOTUS ruling that holding back exculpatory evidence violates due process. Appellate Judge Juan Torruella, at the First Circuit court, assured our counsel, in writing, that the material we sent would be given consideration. He did not mention it in his ruling. But, as you recall, his favorable ruling vacated the death penalty.

Again, our amicus curiae brief was accepted by the US Supreme Court, but they have not referred to it in their ruling today (as far as I know). Thus, Jahar is slated to die. I am unschooled as to what Jahar’s right was, or still is, to demand an appeal of his conviction, not just an appeal of the sentencing.

Reginald, a friend has just sent me a note of sympathy. She thinks I am mourning for Jahar. In all honesty, I am mourning for Boston. Or for America. Although I have had more exposure to Australian courts — which are terrible — I can say that most of what I see in America’s courts, both state and federal, is just as discouraging. It’s almost unbelievable.

Cuz, what has happened to our beautiful country? Who is running this show?

Link here to Mary’s book, Boston’s Marathon Bombing: What Can Law Do?