Saifullo Saipov, Manhattan Bicycle Terrorist Escapes Death Penalty

ISIS-inspired terrorist Saifullo Saipov on Monday received a pardon he failed to grant to eight victims he mowed down on a Manhattan bike path with a rented truck and got rid of the death penalty.

In a memo sent shortly after 2 p.m., jurors debating whether Saipov should be executed for the massacre on a busy West Side bike path on October 31, 2017, said they had concluded they could not reach a unanimous decision. .

Manhattan Federal Court Judge Vernon Broderick took the memo as the jury’s final answer.

“There is nothing in the note to indicate that they are not completely satisfied with the results,” Broderick said.

The judge got acquainted with the form of the verdict in court and made sure that all members of the commission agree that they cannot come to a unanimous decision and collectively want to end the discussion.

The result means that Saipov is destined to spend the rest of his days at ADX Florence in Colorado, a maximum security prison in America.

35-year-old Saipov sat silently, recognizing his fate. In January, he was found guilty of 28 counts of murder and terrorism related to the attack.

In 2004, the state of New York outlawed the death penalty, but it remained legal in federal cases such as the Saipov case. The last time a Manhattan federal defendant received a death sentence that was not overturned on appeal was in 1954.

The verdict came after a lengthy legal battle that began with the court taking months to find a group of jurors who did not hold strong beliefs about the death penalty. The stage of proving lasted about a month, and the stage of passing the death sentence took about the same time.

Jurors saw gruesome autopsy photos of the mutilated victims on the bike path where Saipov, a native of Uzbekistan, crashed into them with a rented 6,000-pound flatbed truck.

Prosecutors called the loved ones of the eight victims and more than a dozen injured to testify about how the horrific attack affected their lives.

During the Halloween attack, Anne-Laure Decadt, 31, a Belgian mother of two, was killed while riding a bicycle with her mother and two sisters; five men from Argentina — Hernan Mendoza, Diego Angelini, Alejandro Pagnucco, Ariel Erliy and Hernan Ferrucci — who, along with five other high school friends, traveled to town to celebrate 30 years of friendship, and a 23-year-old New Yorker. Nicholas Cleves, software engineer.

The mother of 32-year-old Darren Drake, a New Jersey crime victim, wept at the scene of testimony that her son didn’t live to find out he got his dream promotion.

“He wanted him to be able to just see the recognition and get that title he worked so hard for,” Barbara Drake testified Feb. 21, telling jurors she learned about her son’s planned promotion from his boss at the wake.

“Unfortunately, he was ready to take the title when he was killed. He never found out. He did not know. That’s the only thing I’m so sad about that he never figured out what he really is – he actually did it.”

Saipov’s lawyers never attempted to claim he was innocent of the murder, nor did they cross-examine any of the victims’ close associates. From the very beginning of the trial, it was said that Saipov had committed a “terrible” crime. His relatives, who spoke out against it, said they no longer recognize the brainwashed Saipov.

“He committed a terrible tragedy,” Saipov’s father, Khabibullokh Saipov, testified through an interpreter on February 23. “He caused the death of eight people and injured many more, ruined their lives.”

Saipov’s defense argued that he carried out the horrific attack not to join ISIS, as the government claimed, but in a false desire to be martyred.

His lawyers said he became radicalized due to online conspiracy theories while working as a truck driver after moving to the US. specifically for online spaces where migrant workers congregate.

Saipov’s attorney, David Patton, argued that it was unrealistic to suggest that ISIS leaders contacted “an Uber driver in Paterson, New Jersey” to carry out the attack, or even knew of Saipov’s existence, even if his client believed otherwise.

“It came from material that just floated around the internet,” Patton said in his resume. “If you bought into this idea of ​​martyrdom, this is the key that you will only get heaven and safety from the end of the world and take your family and 72 girls with you, and all this only happens if the intention is pure, and not join the organization “.

Saipov’s defense also argued that the government was wrong in arguing that he was too much of a threat to remain alive behind bars at ADX Florence.

Minutes after deliberations began, the jury asked Judge Vernon Broderick if they could discuss the current method of execution in the US, lethal injection, or the current moratorium on the death penalty imposed by US Attorney General Merrick Garland. The judge told them they couldn’t.