7 Radicals Acquitted of Racketeering : Prosecution Claimed They Planned to Free Colleagues From Jail

Seven self-proclaimed revolutionaries were acquitted today by a federal jury of racketeering charges for allegedly planning to rob armored trucks and help confederates break out of jail. Six had been convicted earlier of weapons charges.

The racketeering verdict was a clear setback for prosecutors, who described the arrests last year as having shattered a ring that planned to take over where members of the radical Weather Underground and Black Liberation Army left off.

The trial began May 20 with nine defendants in a group that centered around Harvard-educated Coltrane Chimurenga, a graduate student born under the name Randolph Simms. One was dropped from the trial over a legal technicality and a second was acquitted earlier when a partial verdict was returned.

Six of the defendants were convicted Friday of weapons charges carrying maximum sentences of five to 10 years, and the seventh, Viola Plummer, was found guilty of falsely identifying herself to law-enforcement authorities.

U.S. District Judge Robert L. Carter set sentencing for Oct. 1.

After returning the verdicts on the weapons counts Friday, the jury insisted that it was hopelessly deadlocked on the major racketeering and conspiracy charges.

Carter sent jurors home for the weekend with instructions to rethink their positions, and it took less than two hours for the seven men and five women to return the innocent verdicts when they reconvened this morning.

Eight of the jurors hugged several of the defendants in the courthouse corridor after the verdict was announced.

Chimurenga and his associates were arrested last Oct. 18 in a citywide sweep that involved more than 400 FBI and local law enforcement agents, who said they seized an arsenal of weapons at homes used by the group.

The agents admitted that in a two-year investigation they had not linked the group to any major crimes, but they said there was strong evidence that the group was preparing to forcibly free two of their political sympathizers from prison.

The two were Kuwesi Balagoon, convicted of participating in the 1981 Brink’s armored car robbery that left three people dead, and Sekou Odinga, convicted of conspiring with members of the group that committed that robbery.

The defendants said they were being persecuted for their political beliefs and denied that they were preparing to commit any crimes. They described themselves as Marxist “freedom fighters” who sought creation of an independent state for black Americans.