356: The Prosecutor
May 30, 2008
A lawyer in the Justice Department gets the professional opportunity of a lifetime: To be the lead prosecutor in one of the first high-profile terrorist cases since 9/11. But things go badly for him.
His convictions get overturned, he loses his job, and he ends up on trial himself, in federal court. His accusers? His former colleagues at the Justice department.
- Host Ira Glass recalls the case of the so-called Detroit Sleeper Cell—four men, arrested in the weeks after 9/11, accused of plotting terrorist attacks. Ira explains that the entire program will be devoted to the story of the man who prosecuted the case...an up-and-coming prosecutor in the Department of Justice, Richard G. Convertino. (1 minute)
Photo
This drawing, allegedly of an American airbase in Turkey, was one of the central—and most contested—pieces of evidence during the terrorism trial. The prosecution said it showed the exact planes and take-off pattern at the American base at Incirlik. The defense? They said the drawing was the delusional doodles of a raving schizophrenic.
