A federal appeals court has ordered leftist Manhattan civil rights lawyer Lynne Stewart to surrender and begin serving her sentence immediately on her 2005 conviction for shuttling messages from imprisoned terrorist Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman. Stewart, 70, has been free on bail pending appeal since her 2005 conviction for using her status as Abdel-Rahman's lawyer to violate federal rules barring him from communicating from his high-security imprisonment, and her 2006 sentence to 28 months in jail by U.S. District Judge John Koeltl.
A three-judge panel of the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Tuesday morning's ruling, not only affirmed Stewart's conviction and ordered her to prison immediately, but remanded the case to Koeltl to consider whether she should get a harsher sentence.
Prosecutors had sought 30 years, and the court said Koeltl - who cited her lifetime of efforts on behalf of the downtrodden in mitigation - may not have adequately considered claims that she perjured herself and other factors.
"Because the district court declined to find whether Stewart committed perjury at trial, we cannot conclude that the mitigating factors found to support her sentence can reasonably bear the weight assigned to them," Judge Robert Sack wrote.
"This is so particularly in light of the seriousness of her criminal conduct, her responsibilities as a member of the bar, and her role as counsel for Abdel-Rahman."