10th Circuit vacates family convictions in 3-year-old’s desert compound death

The appellate court found there was no evidence of a federal kidnapping crime when a father and his relatives took his young child from his mother without her consent.(CN) — The 10th Circuit vacated on Tuesday the kidnapping convictions of family members of a father who took his 3-year-old to a remote compound in New Mexico, where the child died during an exorcism ritual intended to rid him of evil spirits.The appellate panel also vacated the convictions of the father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, and his brother-in-law, Lucas Morton, of conspiracy to provide material support to kill federal officers, as well as actually providing material support to kill federal officers.In a unanimous decision, the Denver-based court said Ibn Wahhaj’s two sisters and his brother-in-law shouldn’t have been convicted of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and kidnapping resulting in death because the trial judge gave the jury a misleading instruction of what constitutes kidnapping under the law.While the government claimed the kidnapping of the child, Abdul Ghani, was unlawful because neither he nor his mother, Hakima Ramzi, had consented to his father taking him away from the motel in Georgia where he was living at the time with his mother, the panel said no court order or state law was making it unlawful for Ibn Wahhaj and the others to take the child without the mother’s consent.“Nothing supports that Siraj lacked lawful authority to take Abdul Ghani,” U.S. Circuit Judge Gregory Phillips wrote, referring to the parties by their first names to avoid confusion. “As Abdul Ghani’s natural parent, Siraj had ‘inherent’ custody over him. No court orders disrupted that authority or made it unlawful for Siraj to take Abdul Ghani from Hakima when he did.”“Defendants’ taking Abdul Ghani was an unattractive and immoral situation,” the Barack Obama appointee added. “It was wrong for Siraj and defendants to take Abdul Ghani from Hakima, and tragedy ensued. But that doesn’t make it a federal kidnapping.”Ibn Wahhaj’s sisters and brother-in-law can’t be retried on the kidnapping charges, the panel ruled.The appellate court also vacated Ibn Wahhaj’s and Morton’s three separate convictions each of conspiring to kill federal officers because the two men, who represented themselves with the help of standby attorneys, had been excluded from bench conferences with the judge about two notes the jury had sent during deliberations.“By excluding Lucas and Siraj from the jury-note conference, the district court let standby counsel interfere with the pro se defendants’ right to make substantial tactical decisions and speak for themselves on important matters,” Phillips wrote.The two men can be retried on these charges.A federal public defender for Ibn Wahhaj declined to comment on the ruling, citing office policy. Representatives of the Justice Department and lawyers for the other defendants didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.In late 2017, Ibn Wahhaj, Morton and his sisters Hujrah and Subhanah Wahhaj took the 3-year-old child, who suffered from various developmental conditions, from Ibn Wahhaj’s wife at the orders of Jany Leveille, who told the group Abdul Ghani was her son and had been possessed by evil spirits. They eventually went to New Mexico, where they stayed at a remote compound together with their other children.Some of the boys held at the compound testified in a 2023 trial that Ibn Wahhaj and others withheld his child’s anti-seizure medication and performed “daily exorcisms" on him until he foamed at the mouth and died. They ditched his body in an underground tunnel.Leveille told the group the child would be reincarnated as Isa, the Arabic name for Jesus, and would lead them around the world to “corrupt institutions,” including the federal government, while performing miracles and collecting followers.The men at the compound would form an army and kill anyone who didn’t believe in Abdul Ghani. To prepare, they started weapon training at a firing range at the compound.It wasn’t until August 2018 that local law enforcement caught up with them and found the dead child hidden in a tunnel.Leveille pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to kill federal officers and to possessing a firearm while unlawfully in the U.S. She didn’t go on trial with the four other defendants.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads