Fort Dix

CAMDEN, N.J. - A New Jersey baker pleaded guilty yesterday to conspiring to provide weapons to a group of men accused of plotting an attack on Fort Dix. Agron Abdullahu, 25, faces up to five years in federal prison. He is the first person to be convicted in connection with the alarming accusation that a group of young men were planning to raid the nearby Army installation and kill soldiers there. Abdullahu's public defender, Richard Coughlin, said that if a plot is found to have existed, his client had no role in it. "My client was essentially used by these other individuals,"...

TRENTON, N.J. - A federal appeals panel yesterday upheld the convictions and sentences of five Muslim men accused of planning to attack Fort Dix or other military bases, though it threw out a charge against one defendant. The main issue was prosecutors' use of wiretaps obtained under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a part of the Patriot Act aimed largely at gathering foreign intelligence. The men - Mohamad Shnewer, Serdar Tatar, and brothers Dritan, Eljvir, and Shain Duka - were arrested in May 2007.

CAMDEN, N.J. - The trial of five men accused of plotting an attack on soldiers at Fort Dix will begin as scheduled on Sept. 29 despite attorneys' requests for a delay, a judge said yesterday. Defense lawyers said they needed more time to find a new expert witness because one is being forced to bow out. Prosecutors sided with them, saying the request was reasonable because granting it would give the defense less grounds to appeal if there is a conviction. "I'm not afraid of an appeal," said US District Judge Robert Kugler.

Turns out, Joseph P. Lally Jr. is not going far at all. Lally, the key witness in the corruption trial that led to the downfall of former House speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi, was assigned yesterday to serve his 18-month prison sentence in the minimum-security facility at Fort Devens. The facility offers far more comfortable conditions than the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., where Lally was initially assigned. There, he would have had to take part in work units, cooking and cleaning for inmates, in a more secure setting.

CAMDEN, N.J. - Five men accused of planning an attack on an Army training base in New Jersey were inspired by Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, a prosecutor said yesterday during opening statements in their terrorism trial. The government has presented the case as one of the most frightening examples of homegrown terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks. Authorities said that in 2006 and 2007 the men turned paintball games into terrorist training sessions and met to discuss a plot to sneak into Fort Dix, used primarily to train reservists for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

CAMDEN, N.J. - Three immigrant brothers involved in a plot to kill military personnel, possibly on Fort Dix, were sentenced yesterday to spend the rest of their lives in prison. The government had said the men were familiar with the Army post because their father's pizza shop delivered there, and it presented the case as one of the most startling examples of homegrown terrorism. Dritan, Eljvir, and Shain Duka professed their innocence in courtroom speeches before US District Judge Robert Kugler handed down their sentences.

PATERSON, N.J. - Specialist Leydi Mendoza stood alone among the hugging families in Fort Dix when she and 300 other members of the New Jersey National Guard returned home from Iraq three months ago. When she went to her former boyfriend’s home afterward to see their 2-year-old daughter, he ended the visit before Mendoza was ready and subsequently allowed her only a few brief visits, saying the toddler needed time to adjust to having her mother...

Turns out, Joseph P. Lally Jr. is not going far at all. Lally, the key witness in the corruption trial that led to the downfall of former House speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi, was assigned yesterday to serve his 18-month prison sentence in the minimum-security facility at Fort Devens. The facility offers far more comfortable conditions than the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., where Lally was initially assigned. There, he would have had to take part in work units, cooking and cleaning for inmates, in a more secure setting.

When Sergeant Jerry Saslav came marching home to Framingham, after three years at war, he arrived to an empty house. His wife, Lori, and daughter, Erin, uncertain of his exact arrival, were visiting relatives in California. He wouldn't see them until he picked them up at Logan Airport the following day. It wasn't the homecoming any of them had envisioned. He got cheated, Lori concedes. It was a harmless miscue but also a fitting first day of a transition for all three that would be, in some ways, as challenging as deployment.

TRENTON, N.J. - A federal appeals panel yesterday upheld the convictions and sentences of five Muslim men accused of planning to attack Fort Dix or other military bases, though it threw out a charge against one defendant. The main issue was prosecutors' use of wiretaps obtained under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a part of the Patriot Act aimed largely at gathering foreign intelligence. The men - Mohamad Shnewer, Serdar Tatar, and brothers Dritan, Eljvir, and Shain Duka - were arrested in May 2007.

When Sergeant Jerry Saslav came marching home to Framingham, after three years at war, he arrived to an empty house. His wife, Lori, and daughter, Erin, uncertain of his exact arrival, were visiting relatives in California. He wouldn't see them until he picked them up at Logan Airport the following day. It wasn't the homecoming any of them had envisioned. He got cheated, Lori concedes. It was a harmless miscue but also a fitting first day of a transition for all three that would be, in some ways, as challenging as deployment.

PATERSON, N.J. - Specialist Leydi Mendoza stood alone among the hugging families in Fort Dix when she and 300 other members of the New Jersey National Guard returned home from Iraq three months ago. When she went to her former boyfriend’s home afterward to see their 2-year-old daughter, he ended the visit before Mendoza was ready and subsequently allowed her only a few brief visits, saying the toddler needed time to adjust to having her mother...

CAMDEN, N.J. - Three immigrant brothers involved in a plot to kill military personnel, possibly on Fort Dix, were sentenced yesterday to spend the rest of their lives in prison. The government had said the men were familiar with the Army post because their father's pizza shop delivered there, and it presented the case as one of the most startling examples of homegrown terrorism. Dritan, Eljvir, and Shain Duka professed their innocence in courtroom speeches before US District Judge Robert Kugler handed down their sentences.

CAMDEN, N.J. - Five men accused of planning an attack on an Army training base in New Jersey were inspired by Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, a prosecutor said yesterday during opening statements in their terrorism trial. The government has presented the case as one of the most frightening examples of homegrown terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks. Authorities said that in 2006 and 2007 the men turned paintball games into terrorist training sessions and met to discuss a plot to sneak into Fort Dix, used primarily to train reservists for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

CAMDEN, N.J. - The trial of five men accused of plotting an attack on soldiers at Fort Dix will begin as scheduled on Sept. 29 despite attorneys' requests for a delay, a judge said yesterday. Defense lawyers said they needed more time to find a new expert witness because one is being forced to bow out. Prosecutors sided with them, saying the request was reasonable because granting it would give the defense less grounds to appeal if there is a conviction. "I'm not afraid of an appeal," said US District Judge Robert Kugler.

CAMDEN, N.J. - A New Jersey baker pleaded guilty yesterday to conspiring to provide weapons to a group of men accused of plotting an attack on Fort Dix. Agron Abdullahu, 25, faces up to five years in federal prison. He is the first person to be convicted in connection with the alarming accusation that a group of young men were planning to raid the nearby Army installation and kill soldiers there. Abdullahu's public defender, Richard Coughlin, said that if a plot is found to have existed, his client had no role in it. "My client was essentially used...

BERLIN, N.H. — A warden has been named for the federal prison under construction in the New Hampshire North Country. Deborah Schult, a former associate warden at the Federal Medical Center at Fort Devens in Massachusetts, will report to the prison in February. Schult joined the Federal Bureau of Prisons in 1995 as a psychologist at the correctional institution in Fort Dix, N.J. Schult, who also has served as a residential drug abuse coordinator, was named warden at the medium-security prison in Ray Brook, N.Y., in 2007.

COLCHESTER, Vt. -- Two members of the Vermont Army National Guard were killed yesterday in Iraq. Sergeant Kevin Sheehan, 36, of Milton, and Specialist Alan Bean Jr., 22, of Bridport, were killed while working at the coalition base Kolsu about 25 miles south of Baghdad, said Vermont National Guard spokeswoman Veronica Saffo. Six other Vermont soldiers were injured in the mortar attack that killed Sheehan and Bean. Saffo said she didn't yet know the extent of their injuries.