Lawyer: Pregnant American charged in overseas terror case to plead not guilty at Pa. hearing

Lawyer: US terror suspect to plead not guilty

PHILADELPHIA — A pregnant American charged in a global terrorism plot will plead not guilty this week in Philadelphia, her lawyer said Monday.

Defense lawyer Jeremy Ibrahim said he has not yet seen any evidence to support the terrorism charge lodged against Jamie Paulin-Ramirez.

Paulin-Ramirez has been in federal custody in Philadelphia since voluntarily returning from Ireland on Friday, the same day an indictment was unsealed adding her name to charges filed last month against a Pennsylvania woman, Colleen LaRose.

LaRose is charged in all four counts, the most serious being her alleged pledge to kill a Swedish artist who had offended Muslims. Paulin-Ramirez is charged only in the first count, conspiring to give material aid to terrorists intent on jihad, or holy war.

As evidence, the indictment cites several e-mails between the women last year in which Paulin-Ramirez allegedly agrees to come to what LaRose expected to be “a training camp as well as a home” in Ireland. She arrived Sept. 13, and the same day married a suspected terrorist from Algeria whom she had never met, prosecutors said.

“What was the overt act?” Ibrahim asked Monday. “Flying to Ireland? Marrying someone she’d never met? That’s an act of foolishness, not an act of terrorism.”

He met with Paulin-Ramirez in prison Saturday and said she is worried about the fate of her 6-year-old son, who had moved with her to Ireland last fall. He was placed with social services upon her arrest, just as he was when she was briefly detained in Ireland last month in a roundup of suspected terrorists that included her fourth husband.

“She’s distraught, incredibly concerned about her son,” Ibrahim said. He also confirmed she is pregnant but said he did not ask who the father was.

Paulin-Ramirez is due to be arraigned Wednesday. Ibrahim was unsure whether he would seek bail or if his client’s mother, Christine Mott of Leadville, Colo., or other family members would be able to attend.

Mott has described her daughter as a very lonely person seduced by strangers over the Internet. Likewise, the 46-year-old LaRose let an isolated life, caring for an elderly parent in the apartment she shared with a live-in boyfriend in Pennsburg, about an hour from Philadelphia. She was twice-divorced with no children after two early marriages, and also met the alleged co-conspirators online.

Ibrahim described his client’s transformation from working mother to terrorism suspect as “mind-boggling.”

“That a straight-A nursing student with a loving family would one day up and convert, and leave her country and her home, within the span of less than a year, and make national news, is mind-boggling,” he said.

He declined to comment on whether her mental health will be an issue in the legal case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams also declined to comment Monday.

LaRose, who authorities said called herself “Jihad Jane” online, pleaded not guilty to all four counts after returning to the United States last month. She faces a May 3 trial date, although it’s unclear whether she will go to trial. She had been cooperating with authorities, according to Rep. Charles Dent, R.-Pa.

The seven suspects arrested in Ireland, in addition to Paulin-Ramirez and her husband, included another Algerian, two Libyans, a Palestinian and a Croatian.

According to the indictment, LaRose complained to Paulin-Ramirez in the Aug. 1 e-mail that their brothers in the movement were being called terrorists for defending their faith and their homes.

“Thats right … if thats how they call it then so be it i am what i am,” Paulin-Ramirez allegedly responded.

LaRose had been taking care of her boyfriend’s father and left for Ireland on Aug. 23, days after the man died. Paulin-Ramirez followed on Sept. 12.