Firebombing lawyer asks for light sentence, citing drunkenness and ‘raw trauma’

Uruj Rahman was ‘quite drunk’ during George Floyd riots, court documents show

Josh Christensen • Sep 29, 2022 4:59 am

A left-wing lawyer who pleaded guilty to firebombing a police car is asking for a reduced sentence, citing the fact that she was intoxicated at the time of the crime and dealing with “unprocessed trauma,” according to court documents.

Uruj Rahman’s lawyers say the self-described human rights activist was “numb, dissociated and drunk” when she threw a Molotov cocktail at a New York City police car during the George Floyd riots in May 2020. Lawyers say, that Rahman was also shaken by her many “abusive partnerships” and processing “early trauma” from being mocked as a Muslim after 9/11.

On the night of 29 May 2020, Rahman “became quite drunk” after drinking vodka on an “empty stomach” with fellow lawyer and later getaway driver Colinford Mathis. Rahman’s lawyers say the pair’s decision to firebomb a New York City police cruiser was an “improper” act designed to protect others from future police violence.

“Throwing the Molotov cocktail was a way of expressing anger toward those police officers across the country for whom Black’s life did not matter,” Rahman’s lawyers wrote in a September memorandum to U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan. “It was an act of protest to avoid putting others in harm’s way.”

Rahman’s lawyers asked that she be released after “time served”, saying her “conduct that night was a significant departure from her otherwise exemplary life”.

The request for special relief is based on a settlement already reached by Justice Department prosecutors in the case. In June, Rahman and Mathis entered into a second plea agreement that reduced their potential 10-year sentences to a maximum of 5 years. Prosecutors want Judge Kogan to go even lower, arguing for just 18 to 24 months based on “the history and personal characteristics of the defendants.”

Rahman and Mathis each pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit arson and making and possessing an unregistered destructive device, avoiding a previous domestic terrorism conviction. The two pleaded guilty in October 2021 to one count of possessing or making a destructive device, which could have earned them 10 years in prison each.

After their arrest, Rahman and Mattis won the sympathy of the national media and liberal elites. new York magazine, NPR and other outlets ran favorable profiles of the two. Rahman has remained under house arrest with electronic monitoring since June 2020, when a former Obama administration intelligence official helped post her $250,000 bail.

Their defense attorneys said the Trump administration wanted to make a political example of the couple by filing federal charges for a crime normally handled by local authorities. Rahman’s attorneys argued in their memo that the defendant received harsher treatment than in another federal case involving an NYPD van that was bombed in July 2020. Rahman’s attorneys also said that “their client’s commitment towards social justice’ should earn her a lighter sentence.

But the prosecutors who first took up the case stressed that Rahman and Mattis had a higher duty to uphold the rule of law. The two “abdicated their responsibilities as lawyers” when they chose not only to throw, but also to make and distribute the Molotov cocktails. A witness said Rahman had distributed the explosives earlier to the rebels. Prosecutors also released text messages between Rahman and Mathis showing they planned the attack.

“Bring it to their neck,” Mattis texted Rahman before sharing the location of police headquarters. “Molotovs are spinning,” Rahman replied. “I hope they burn everything. They should burn down all the police stations and probably the courts too.”

Rahman also gave a video interview before distributing the explosives. “This thing is never going to stop unless we get the hell out of it,” she said. “The only way we will be heard is through violence.”

Rahman and Mathis say they were each diagnosed with anxiety and depression, for which they received psychiatric help. Both were also treated for alcoholism.

A clinical psychologist who analyzed Rahman at the behest of her lawyers said the defendant “[b]her surface functionality is severely compromised.” Rahman, she says, has two therapists, regularly attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and is prescribed an array of psychiatric medications.

A graduate of Fordham University Law School, Rahman was a public interest attorney at Bronx Legal Services. Mathis, a graduate of Princeton and New York University law schools, was an associate at Pryor Cashman, a mid-sized corporate law firm.

Rahman was due to be sentenced in federal court in Brooklyn on Thursday, but successfully petitioned to have the hearing moved to November 9.