TAMPA, Florida — The trial began Tuesday in Florida for four activists accused of illegally acting as Russian agents to help the Kremlin sow political division and interfere in US elections.
All four are or were affiliated with the African People’s Socialist Party and Uhuru Movement, which has offices in St. Petersburg, Florida, and St. Louis. Among the defendants is Omali Yeshitela, the 82-year-old president of the U.S.-based organization that focuses on Black empowerment and the effort to obtain reparations for slavery and what it considers the earlier genocide of Africans.
In an opening statement, Yeshitela attorney Ade Griffin said the group shares many goals with a Russian organization called the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, but that it does not operate under Russian government control.
“Ladies and gentlemen, that is simply not true,” Griffin told a racially mixed jury. “This is a case about censorship.”
Yeshitela and two others are charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States and failing to register with the Justice Department as agents of a foreign government. The fourth defendant, who later founded a separate group in Atlanta called Black Hammer, is charged only with conspiracy. All have pleaded not guilty.
Three Russians, two of whom prosecutors say are Russian intelligence agents, are also charged in the case but have not yet been arrested.
While there are some indications that Russia interfered in the 2016 US presidential election, US District Judge William Jung has said those issues are not part of this case.
“This trial will not focus on Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election,” Jung said in an order dated Monday.
In his opening statement, Justice Department attorney Menno Goedman said members of the group organized protests under Russian direction in 2016. The group claimed that black people were victims of genocide in the US and also took other actions favorable to Russia over the next six years, including opposing US policy in the war in Ukraine.
“This is about dividing Americans, dividing communities, pitting neighbors against neighbors,” Goedman told jurors. “The defendants were acting under orders from the Russian government to sow division here in the United States.”
That included support for a candidate for St. Petersburg City Council in 2019 whom the Russians claimed to be “supervising,” according to the criminal complaint. The candidate lost that race and has not been charged in the case.
Much of the alleged collaboration involved support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In March 2022, Yeshitela held a press conference in which he said that the “African People’s Socialist Party calls for unity with Russia in its defensive war in Ukraine against the world colonial powers.” He also called for the independence of the Russian-occupied Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.
However, defense lawyers said that despite their connections to the Russian organization, the actions of the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement were precisely in line with what they have been advocating for more than 50 years. Yeshitela founded the organization in 1972 as a Black empowerment group that opposed vestiges of colonialism around the world.
“They shared some common beliefs,” said attorney Leonard Goodman, who represents defendant Penny Hess. “That makes them threatening.”
Yeshitela, Hess and co-defendant Jesse Nevel face up to 15 years in prison if found guilty of conspiracy and registration of foreign agents. The fourth defendant, Augustus Romain, faces up to five years in prison if found guilty of registration.
The process is expected to take up to four weeks.