NEW YORK, Jan. 30 (UPI) -- The judge who sentenced New York lawyer Lynne Stewart ignored her conviction on a "crime of terrorism," a federal prosecutor told an appeals court.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Barkow asked a three-judge panel Tuesday to impose a substantially longer term than the "slap on the wrist" of 28 months Stewart received, the New York Daily News reported.
Stewart, a lawyer with a long history of radical activism, was found guilty in 2006 of carrying messages for Sheik Omar Abdel al-Rahman. The blind Egyptian cleric is serving a life sentence for his part in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
U.S. District Judge John Koeltl cited Stewart's lack of any criminal record when he sentenced her, departing both from federal guidelines and the 30 years prosecutors asked for. For Stewart, 68, that would have been an effective life sentence.
"She was sentenced as if she was not convicted ... of a crime of terrorism, which she was," Barkow said.
