NEW YORK, (Reuters) – A Guyanese man who admitted to participating in the early stages of a plot to blow up John F. Kennedy International Airport received a four-year prison sentence today, after providing what a judge described as “extraordinary” testimony during the trial of his former co-conspirators.
Donald Nero, 51, pleaded guilty in 2008 to helping Russell Defreitas, a former cargo handler at JFK, devise a plan to explode fuel tanks and a fuel pipeline under the airport in an attack whose dimensions “would have been greater” than the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, said U.S. District Judge Dora Irizarry.
According to prosecutors, Nero was one of several individuals from Guyana and Trinidad recruited by Defreitas for the attack, nicknamed “The Shining” because of the giant, fiery explosion that the plotters expected to light up the sky around the airport. But before it could be put into motion, Nero got cold feet and dropped out, prosecutors said.
Nero faced 30 years to life in prison under federal sentencing guidelines. But because he voluntarily came to the U.S. from Guyana in 2008 to help investigators build their case against Defreitas and other co-conspirators, providing extensive details on the failed plot in the face of death threats from Defreitas, Irizarry reduced the sentence to four years.
“What is also of striking importance here is that despite your initial agreement to participate in the plot, there was a point when you pulled out and said, ‘No, I don’t want to follow through on this,'” Irizarry said.
‘ACTUALLY, REALLY, TRULY SORRY’
In handing down the reduced sentence, Irizarry noted the unusual show of support for Nero from federal law enforcement officers, who praised his cooperation in detailing the JFK threat, as well as other matters that were not publicly disclosed due to national security concerns, according to the court.
During the hearing in Brooklyn federal court, Nero said he accepted responsibility for his actions and apologized to the people who may have been harmed during the planned attack.
“I am actually, really, truly sorry for the part I played in the early stages of the plot against JFK,” Nero said to the court.
Federal prosecutors had requested a more lenient sentence for Nero than the one prescribed under federal guidelines, given the key role his testimony played during the trials of Defreitas and another alleged co-conspirator, Abdul Kadir, both of whom were convicted for taking part in the planned attack and sentenced to life in prison.
Abdul Nur, who pleaded guilty to taking part in the plot in 2010, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. A fifth defendant, Kareem Ibrahim, an imam and Muslim community leader in Trinidad, was found guilty by a jury in May of taking part in the conspiracy. He faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced in January.
Nero will receive credit for the time he has spent in federal custody since voluntarily leaving Guyana to come to the United States in September 2008, said his lawyer, Lee Ginsberg of Freeman Nooter & Ginsberg. With that credit he will spend an additional 6 months to a year in prison, according to Ginsberg.
“I think the judge truly understood the depth of his remorse and the level of his assistance, which was really extraordinary,” Ginsberg said.
Irizarry noted during the hearing that Defreitas and other individuals had made threats against Nero and his family after Nero stepped forward to cooperate with federal authorities. Ginsberg did not comment on what steps would be taken to protect Nero and his family following the sentence.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York said the sentence spoke for itself and declined further comment.
The case is U.S. v. Nero, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, no. 08-621.
For Nero: Lee Ginsberg of Freeman Nooter & Ginsberg
For the U.S.: Assistant U.S. attorneys Berit Berger, Jeffrey Knox and Marshall Miller
