Tag Archives: FBI

Ex-drug dealer testifies Bulger tried to force him to pay $1M with Russian Roulette-like game

A former drug dealer testified Wednesday that James “Whitey” Bulger once tried to scare him into paying $1 million by having an associate spin a loaded gun on a table, point it at him, then pull the trigger.

William David Lindholm, testifying in Bulger’s racketeering trial, said Bulger’s associate played a “Russian Roulette”-like game with him in 1983. He said the associate first fired the gun and a bullet went by his head. Then, he spun the gun on the table and pulled the trigger, but the gun did not go off, Lindholm said.

“I was just glad to get out of there,” he said.

Lindholm said he and his partner were major marijuana smugglers who distributed about 85 tons of the drug that summer — without Bulger’s permission. Shortly after that, Lindholm said he was asked to go to a nightclub where he found Bulger and three other men in a small room upstairs.

Lindholm said Bulger pulled two guns out and demanded $1 million. He said he negotiated with Bulger to get the amount down to $250,000 and agreed to pay in installments.

Afterward, he said, Bulger shook his hand and told him he had handled himself well, but also told him what he’d do if he tried to sell drugs on his own again.

“He’d cut my head off,” Lindholm said.

Lindholm was the latest in a string of former drug dealers and bookmakers who have testified that Bulger used threats and intimidation to extort them by demanding lump sum payments or regular “tribute” payments so they could stay in business.

Bulger, now 83, is accused in a 32-count racketeering indictment of playing a role in 19 killings in the 1970s and ’80s while he allegedly led the Winter Hill Gang. He is also charged with money laundering and extortion.

Bulger’s alleged partner, Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi, is scheduled to testify Thursday — nearly 20 years after they last saw each other.

Their former FBI handler, John Connolly, was convicted of tipping off both men in late 1994 that they were about to be indicted. Bulger fled Boston and was one of the nation’s most wanted fugitives until he was captured in Santa Monica, Calif., in 2011. Flemmi stayed, was arrested and later pleaded guilty to 10 killings. He is now serving a life sentence.

Bulger’s lawyers have strongly denied the prosecution contention that their client was an informant who ratted on the New England Mafia and other criminals. They say he paid FBI agents to tip him off to investigations and upcoming indictments.

In other testimony Wednesday, a former U.S. customs agent said a man Bulger is accused of killing was cooperating with law enforcement just before he disappeared in 1984.

Bulger is charged with fatally shooting John McIntyre, a fisherman from Quincy, after learning that he was talking to authorities.

Former customs agent Donald DeFago testified that McIntyre described drug smuggling and other activities, including a failed attempt to ship weapons to the Irish Republican Army.

Bulger associate Kevin Weeks testified earlier that Bulger interrogated and killed McIntyre while he …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

Weapons stockpile, pressure cooker found in Massachusetts man's home, police say

Police said they found a weapons stockpile, including a large pressure cooker and bomb-making materials inside a Massachusetts man’s home, MyFoxBoston.com reported.

According to the report, the FBI is looking into whether Daniel Morley, 27, of Topsfield, has any connection to the Boston Marathon bombers.

Police found the pressure cooker in a gym bag, along with ball bearings, wires and dismantled cellphone parts, MyFoxBoston.com reported. Police also discovered a shoe box with a dismembered bird inside.

Court documents said an assault rifle with hundreds of rounds of ammunition also was found.

The discovery was made after Morley was arrested for allegedly assaulting his mother and her boyfriend.

According to MyFoxBoston.com, the mother told police her son had the materials before the marathon bombings, but claims he bragged that his best friend used to box with one of the bombers, Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

Morley reportedly has anti-government and anti-Semitic beliefs.

He was charged with two counts of assault and battery and making bomb threats. He is currently being held on $20,000 bail and is due back in court on Thursday.

Click for more from MyFoxBoston.com.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

Coalition sues to halt electronic surveillance

Rights activists, church leaders and drug and gun rights advocates found common ground and filed a lawsuit against the federal government to halt a vast National Security Agency electronic surveillance program.

In the lawsuit filed Tuesday, San Francisco’s Electronic Frontier Foundation, representing the unusually broad coalition of plaintiffs, is seeking an injunction against the NSA, Justice Department, FBI and directors of the agencies.

The suit filed in federal court in San Francisco challenges what the plaintiffs describe as an illegal and unconstitutional program of dragnet electronic surveillance.

The suit comes after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked details about NSA surveillance programs earlier this year.

NSA public affairs deferred comment on the lawsuit to the Justice Department. A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

Whitey Bulger's lawyers submit trimmed-down witness list for trial

James “Whitey” Bulger’s lawyers have submitted a new, pared-down witness list for his racketeering trial.

Bulger’s lawyers had submitted a list with the names of more than 80 potential witnesses. Their new list, filed early Tuesday, contains 37 names. It includes a man who was wrongly convicted in a gangland slaying because of FBI corruption.

Joseph Salvati spent more than 30 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit after corrupt FBI agents withheld evidence.

The prosecution is still presenting its witnesses but could wrap up by the end of this week. The defense could begin presenting its case early next week.

A former FBI agent is expected back on the stand Tuesday.

The 83-year-old Bulger is accused of playing a role in 19 killings in the 1970s and `80s.

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

Bulger's lawyers pare down mob trial witness list

James “Whitey” Bulger’s (BUHL’-jurz) lawyers have submitted a new, pared-down witness list for his racketeering trial.

Bulger’s lawyers had submitted a list with the names of more than 80 potential witnesses. Their new list, filed early Tuesday, contains 37 names. It includes a man who was wrongly convicted in a gangland slaying because of FBI corruption.

Joseph Salvati spent more than 30 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit after corrupt FBI agents withheld evidence.

The prosecution is still presenting its witnesses but could wrap up by the end of this week. The defense could begin presenting its case early next week.

A former FBI agent is expected back on the stand Tuesday.

The 83-year-old Bulger is accused of playing a role in 19 killings in the 1970s and ’80s.

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

Juror: 'No doubt' Zimmerman feared for his life

One of the six jurors in the George Zimmerman trial said Monday that she was certain Zimmerman feared for his life during the confrontation with 17-year-old Trayvon Martin that ended in the teenager’s fatal shooting in February 2012.

“I have no doubt that George feared for his life in the situation he was in at the time,” the woman known as Juror B37 told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

“I think both were responsible for the situation they had gotten themselves into,” the juror added. “I think they both could have walked away.”

Earlier Monday, Mediabistro reported that the juror, whose name has not been revealed, is planning to write a book about the case with the help of her husband, whom a FoxNews.com article about the jury described as a “space attorney” with the company United Space Alliance.

“My hope is that people will read Juror B37’s book, written with her attorney husband, and understand the commitment it takes to serve and be sequestered on a jury in a highly publicized murder trial and how important, despite one’s personal viewpoints, it is to follow the letter of the law,” SharleneMartin, President of Martin Literary Management, said in a statement to Fox News. “It could open a whole new dialogue about laws that may need to be revised and revamped to suit a 21st century way of life. The reader will also learn why the jurors had no option but to find Zimmerman Not Guilty due to the manner in which he was charged and the content of the jury instructions.”

The interview came two days after the six-woman jury acquitted Zimmerman, a former neighborhood watch activist, of second-degree murder and manslaughter in the shooting death of Martin in a gated community in Sanford, Fla. Martin was black, and Zimmerman identifies himself as Hispanic. Zimmerman was not arrested for 44 days, and the delay in charging him led to protests from those who believed race was a factor in the handling of the case.

The Justice Department said Sunday it would consider whether to bring a federal case against Zimmerman for possibly violating Martin’s civil rights. However, previously filed FBI documents have showed that agents have found no evidence of racial bias on Zimmerman’s part.

According to the juror, based on an initial vote, three — including B37 — were in favor of acquittal, two wanted to convict Zimmerman of manslaughter and one wanted to convict Zimmerman of second-degree murder. She said the jury started going through all the evidence, listening to tapes multiple times.

“That’s why it took us so long,” B37 said.

When they started looking at the law, the person who initially wanted second-degree murder changed her vote to manslaughter, the juror said. Then they asked for clarification from the judge and kept going over it again and again. B37 said some jurors wanted to find Zimmerman guilty of something, but there was just no place to go based on the law.

B37 said jurors cried when they gave their final vote to the bailiff.

“I want people to …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

Poll: Bob McDonnell’s Approval Rating Falls

By The Huffington Post News Editors

Scandal-plagued Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s (R) approval rating has dropped 12 percentage points in the past two months, according to a survey released Monday by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling.

A widening FBI probe into gifts from a corporate donors has driven McDonnell’s job rating underwater for the first time in his tenure, according to PPP, with 36 percent of voters approving and 41 percent disapproving. In May, McDonnell had a 44 percent approval rating.

Virginians’ approval of McDonnell, once mentioned as a possible vice presidential running mate for Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney last year, has fallen from 73 percent to 62 percent among Republicans, and from 22 percent to 14 percent among Democrats.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post

Gerald Montanari, Former FBI Agent, Says Bulger Victim Predicted His Own Death

By The Huffington Post News Editors

BOSTON — A man who was allegedly killed by James “Whitey” Bulger predicted he would be killed if Bulger learned he’d been cooperating with authorities, a former FBI agent testified Monday.

Retired agent Gerald Montanari told jurors in Bulger’s racketeering case that Edward “Brian” Halloran became an FBI informant in 1982 and agreed to testify against Bulger and members of his gang in the 1981 slaying of Tulsa, Okla., businessman Roger Wheeler, as well as other killings.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post

13 Americans Dead… The Suspect? President Obama

By Floyd G. Brown

Arlington Cemetary 300x224 13 Americans Dead... The Suspect? President Obama

Washington, D.C. is a town run largely by lawyers. Naturally, this leads to a ton of convoluted and unnecessary legislation. And this overabundance of legality often leads to twisted logic in our nation’s capital – and confusion for us.

Take the two hotly debated (and often misused) words: “coup” and “terrorism.”

You see, when the Egyptian military recently ousted President Mursi, most of the world called that a coup. But for reasons you’ll see in a moment, the Obama administration doesn’t see it that way.

Then there’s Major Nidal Hasan’s attack on Fort Hood, Texas on November 5, 2009 – which left 13 people dead and 30 injured. You’d probably file that one under an act of terror. But according to Obama, you’d be wrong.

Time to shed some light on this classic Washington head fake. Technically Speaking…

“Coup d’état” is a French word that made its way into the English language.  The Oxford Dictionary identifies it as a French expression, meaning a “stroke of state.”

Military historian Edward Luttwak says that “[a] coup consists of the infiltration of a small, but critical, segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder.”

So, when the Egyptian military grabbed power and imprisoned President Mohamed Mursi, headlines across the world (correctly) screamed “Coup in Egypt.”

Yet in the Obama administration, twisted words reign, and take on surreal meanings. And in this case, they’re simply insisting that the situation in Egypt isn’t actually a coup.

Why?

Well, the Foreign Assistance Act states that if the “duly elected head of government is deposed by military act or decree,” then the United States must stop providing aid.

But Obama desperately wants to continue pumping $1.55 billion in aid to Egypt. And as I explained back in June, Egypt is collapsing and ungovernable. Without the continued flow of aid, the collapse will accelerate, and Egypt’s government would likely vanish.

This is just another classic example of the Obama team’s complete disregard for the law. And if Obama says it’s not a coup, then it’s not. Period.

More Than Semantics

A similar twist of words is playing out in the Fort Hood case. Obama’s lawyers insist that Hasan isn’t a terrorist, and that his attack is “work place violence” rather than an act of terrorism.

Talk about splitting hairs.

According to the FBI, Hasan was an avid reader of Jihadi websites. He worshipped at Jihadi-influenced mosques. Hasan even self-identifies as a “soldier of Allah.” He openly supported suicide attacks against non-Muslims, and received religious and operational inspiration from Anwar Al-Awlaki.

You may remember Al-Awlaki – he was the American citizen and al-Qaeda promoter killed by a U.S. drone because he was deemed a terrorist.

Now the administration’s refusal to call the Fort Hood attack a terrorist attack is seriously impacting the lives of the survivors and victims.

For example, the Pentagon refuses to treat the injured and dead as casualties of war. Consequently, they’ve been denied the Purple Heart medal that’s bestowed on Americans injured in battle.

The U.S. House even …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism

Bulger's former partner to testify this week

James “Whitey” Bulger (BUHL’-jur) will come face to face with his former partner, Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi, when Flemmi takes the witness stand this week in Bulger’s racketeering trial.

The two have not seen each other since Bulger fled Boston in 1994. Bulger was one of the nation’s most wanted fugitives until he was captured in 2011 in Santa Monica, Calif.

Flemmi pleaded guilty to 10 murders and is serving a life sentence. He is expected to testify about Bulger’s alleged involvement in numerous killings.

Bulger is accused of participating in 19 killings during the 1970s and ’80s while he allegedly led the Winter Hill Gang. The 83-year-old Bulger has pleaded not guilty.

Flemmi is expected to testify mid-week.

On Monday, prosecutors plan to call a former FBI agent and a relative of one of the victims.

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

As Justice pursues civil rights case against Zimmerman, FBI documents show no evidence of bias

The Justice Department has responded to appeals to probe whether George Zimmerman committed any civil rights violations in the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin — but previously filed FBI documents are already challenging the narrative that the shooting was racially motivated.

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox News – Politics

NYC case casts light on West African mining fight

A federal case in New York City has cast a harsh light on a high-stakes battle over iron ore mining rights in West Africa.

Prosecutors in Manhattan have charged Frederic Cilins with obstructing justice by trying to get the wife of the former president of Guinea to destroy evidence of bribery.

Court papers cite secretly recorded conversations of the Frenchman telling the wife he’s under orders to make sure the documents burn. They say he was overheard offering her millions of dollars.

The wife now lives in Jacksonville, Fla., and has agreed to cooperate with the FBI and make the recordings. She claimed to have proof that a mining company that employed Cilins used bribes to secure mining licenses in Guinea.

Both Cilins and the company have denied any wrongdoing.

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

Mother of bomb suspects insists sons are innocent

The angry and grieving mother of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects insists that her sons are innocent and that she’s no terrorist.

But Zubeidat Tsarnaeva is drawing increased attention after federal officials say Russian authorities intercepted her phone calls, including one in which she vaguely discussed jihad with her elder son. In another, she was recorded talking to someone in southern Russia who is under FBI investigation in an unrelated case, U.S. officials said.

In photos of her as a younger woman, Tsarnaeva wears a low-cut blouse and has her hair teased like a 1980s rock star. After she arrived in the U.S. from Russia in 2002, she went to beauty school and did facials at a suburban day spa.

But in recent years, people noticed a change. She began wearing a hijab and cited conspiracy theories about 9/11 being a plot against Muslims.

Tsarnaeva insists there is no mystery and that she’s just someone who found a deeper spirituality. She fiercely defends her sons — Tamerlan, who was killed in a gunfight with police, and Dzhokhar, who was wounded and captured.

“It’s all lies and hypocrisy,” she told The Associated Press in Dagestan. “I’m sick and tired of all this nonsense that they make up about me and my children. People know me as a regular person, and I’ve never been mixed up in any criminal intentions, especially any linked to terrorism.”

At a news conference in Dagestan with her ex-husband Anzor Tsarnaev last week, Tsarnaeva appeared overwhelmed with grief one moment, defiant the next. “They already are talking about that we are terrorists, I am terrorist,” she said. “They already want me, him and all of us to look (like) terrorists.”

Amid the scrutiny, Tsarnaeva and Anzor say they have put off the idea of any trip to the U.S. to reclaim their elder son’s body or try to visit Dzhokhar in jail. Tsarnaev told the AP on Sunday he was too ill to travel to the U.S. Tsarnaeva faces a 2012 shoplifting charge in a Boston suburb, though it was unclear whether that was a deterrent.

Tsarnaeva arrived in the U.S. in 2002, settling in a working-class section of Cambridge, Mass. With four children, Anzor and Zubeidat qualified for food stamps and were on and off public assistance benefits for years. The large family squeezed itself into a third-floor apartment.

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

Michael McCaul: Boston Bombings Device ‘Leads Me To Believe’ There Was A Trainer Involved

By The Huffington Post News Editors

By The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee said Sunday that the FBI is investigating in the United States and overseas to determine whether the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing received training that helped them carry out the attack.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, is charged with joining with his older brother, Tamerlan, who’s now dead, in setting off the shrapnel-packed pressure-cooker bombs. The bombs were triggered by a remote detonator of the kind used in remote-control toys, U.S. officials have said.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post

Former attorney general says Boston bombers must have had help in attack

A former U.S. attorney general says the two men police say are behind the deadly Boston Marathon bombings likely had help in the attack.

“I don’t believe they couldn’t have done what they did without technical assistance building the bomb and without…spiritual encouragement,” Michael Mukasey, the former U.S. attorney general under George W. Bush, told Fox News.

Mukasey added that he thinks the belief that the bombers only followed a rulebook from the Internet “doesn’t do it” for him.

Mukasey joins a growing number of officials who say Boston Marathon bombing suspects Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, and his older brother, Tamerlan, who was killed in a shootout with police, likely had assistance in the bombing that killed three people and injured more than 200.

He also said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev could possibly still be questioned for national intelligence purposes for information that could be kept separate from the criminal case.

Mukasey said if those interviews occurred, Tsarnaev wouldn’t have any right to have a lawyer present during the questioning. If Tsarneav filed a habeas corpus petition against such interviews, the challenge could reach the Supreme Court, Mukasey explained, but he thinks the ability to question Tsarnaev separately for intelligence purposes would be upheld.

“The only thing the Fifth Amendment protects you against is being a witness against yourself. That means in a criminal trial,” Mukasey said. “It doesn’t protect you against disclosing national intelligence information.”

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev stopped speaking to FBI interrogators after he was read his Miranda rights and got an attorney.

But Mukasey told Fox News authorities still have “ample evidence” of the attack without Tsarnaev’s statements, citing photographs of the bombing scene and Tsarnaev’s confession to a carjacking after the bombings.

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

Russia caught bomb suspect on wiretap

Russian authorities secretly recorded a telephone conversation in 2011 in which one of the Boston bombing suspects vaguely discussed jihad with his mother, officials said Saturday, days after the U.S. government finally received details about the call.

In another conversation, the mother of now-dead bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was recorded talking to someone in southern Russia who is under FBI investigation in an unrelated case, officials said.

The conversations are significant because, had they been revealed earlier, they might have been enough evidence for the FBI to initiate a more thorough investigation of the Tsarnaev family.

As it was, Russian authorities told the FBI only that they had concerns that Tamerlan and his mother were religious extremists. With no additional information, the FBI conducted a limited inquiry and closed the case in June 2011.

Two years later, authorities say Tamerlan and his brother, Dzhohkar, detonated two homemade bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring more than 260. Tamerlan was killed in a police shootout and Dzhohkar is under arrest.

In the past week, Russian authorities turned over to the United States information it had on Tamerlan and his mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva. The Tsarnaevs are ethnic Chechens who emigrated from southern Russia to the Boston area over the past 11 years.

Even had the FBI received the information from the Russian wiretaps earlier, it’s not clear that the government could have prevented the attack.

In early 2011, the Russian FSB internal security service intercepted a conversation between Tamerlan and his mother vaguely discussing jihad, according to U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation with reporters.

The two discussed the possibility of Tamerlan going to Palestine, but he told his mother he didn’t speak the language there, according to the officials, who reviewed the information Russia shared with the U.S.

In a second call, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva spoke with a man in the Caucasus region of Russia who was under FBI investigation. Jacqueline Maguire, a spokeswoman for the FBI‘s Washington Field Office, where that investigation was based, declined to comment.

There was no information in the conversation that suggested a plot inside the United States, officials said.

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

Wiretapped Tamerlan Talked Jihad: Russian Officials

By Matt Cantor Russian officials have finally revealed what fueled mounting concerns about Tamerlan Tsarnaev : After they wiretapped his phone, they caught him talking about jihad with his mother in 2011. In another recorded conversation, mother Zubeidat Tsarnaeva spoke to a person in southern Russia who is the subject of a separate FBI

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home

Russia had wiretap on Boston Marathon bombing suspect, US officials say

U.S. officials say Russian authorities secretly recorded a conversation in 2011 in which one of the Boston bombing suspects vaguely discussed jihad with his mother.

Officials say a second call was recorded between the suspects’ mother and a man under FBI investigation living in southern Russia.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing case.

They say the Russians shared this intelligence with the U.S. in the past few days.

The conversations are significant because, had they been revealed earlier, there might have been enough evidence for the FBI to initiate a more thorough investigation of the Boston bombing suspects’ family.

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

Russia Wiretapped Boston Bombing Suspect, Recorded Conversation With Mother: Officials

By The Huffington Post News Editors

WASHINGTON — U.S. officials say Russian authorities secretly recorded a conversation in 2011 in which one of the Boston bombing suspects vaguely discussed jihad with his mother.

Officials say a second call was recorded between the suspects’ mother and a man under FBI investigation living in southern Russia.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post

FBI searches landfill near UMass Dartmouth in Boston bombing probe

With the Boston marathon bombing suspect in a prison hospital, investigators are pushing forward in the U.S. and abroad to piece together the myriad details of a plot that killed three people and injured more than 260.

FBI agents have wrapped up a two-day search at a landfill near the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where 19-year-old suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was a sophomore. FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller wouldn’t say what investigators were looking for or whether they recovered anything from the landfill before the search ended Friday.

A federal law enforcement official not authorized to speak on the record about the investigation told The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity on Friday that the FBI was gathering evidence regarding “everything imaginable.”

Meanwhile, U.S. officials said the bombing suspects’ mother had been added to a federal terrorism database about 18 months before the April 15 attack — a disclosure that deepens the mystery around the Tsarnaev family and marks the first time American authorities have acknowledged that Zubeidat Tsarnaeva was under investigation before the tragedy.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is charged with joining with his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, now dead, in setting off the shrapnel-packed pressure-cooker bombs. The brothers are ethnic Chechens from Russia who came to the United States about a decade ago with their parents.

Investigators have said it appears the brothers were angry about the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Two government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation, said the CIA had Zubeidat Tsarnaeva‘s name added to the terror database along with that of her son Tamerlan after Russia contacted the agency in 2011 with concerns that the two were religious militants.

About six months earlier, the FBI investigated mother and son, also at Russia‘s request, one of the officials said. The FBI found no ties to terrorism. Previously U.S. officials had said only that the FBI investigated Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

In an interview from Russia, Tsarnaeva said Friday that she has never been linked to terrorism.

“It’s all lies and hypocrisy,” she said from Dagestan. “I’m sick and tired of all this nonsense that they make up about me and my children. People know me as a regular person, and I’ve never been mixed up in any criminal intentions, especially any linked to terrorism.”

Tsarnaeva faces shoplifting charges in the U.S. over the theft of more than $1,624 worth of women’s clothing from a Lord & Taylor department store in Natick in 2012.

Earlier this week, she said she has been assured by lawyers that she would not be arrested if she traveled to the U.S., but she said she was still deciding whether to go. The suspects’ father, Anzor Tsarnaev, said that he would leave Russia soon for the United States to visit one son and lay the other to rest.

A team of investigators from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow questioned both parents in Russia this week.

Late this week, Dzhohkar Tsarnaev was taken from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he was recovering from a throat wound

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News