Marcus Dwayne Robertson, 46, a former U.S. Marine known to his supporters at his Orlando-based Fundamental Islamic Knowledge Seminary as “Abu Taubah,” is suspected of sending young proteges abroad for terror training.
Federal judge frees Fla. imam -- a former Marine accused of radicalizing homegrown terrorists
A gang leader-turned-radical-Muslim imam considered so dangerous he was kept in shackles and assigned his own guard while he was held in a Florida prison for four years has been freed by a federal judge who said he believes Marcus Dwayne Robertson is a "very bad man," but that federal prosecutors were "woefully inadequate" in making their case for keeping him behind bars.
Robertson, a charismatic former U.S. Marine trained in special operations, once headed a murderous New York gang dubbed “Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves” before resurfacing as a radical imam in Florida who federal sources say radicalized young men and sent them overseas to join terrorist groups. While locked up in the federal wing of the John E. Polk Correctional Facility in Seminole County on gun and tax fraud convictions, Robertson was shackled and held in isolation with an armed guard assigned to him exclusively. Whenever he was transported to court, a seven-car caravan of armed federal marshals escorted him.
Yet efforts by federal prosecutors to tack on another 10 years to his sentence, based on enhanced terrorism charges under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, were not persuasive enough for U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell, who on Friday freed Robertson with time served.
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