Four Americans Convicted in Russian Influence Case

Omali Yeshitela, founder of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), speaks in Dallas on July 8, 2016. Yeshitela was among four black power activists convicted of conspiracy to act as unregistered agents of Russia. Scott Keeler/The Tampa Bay Times via AP, File

A federal jury on Sept. 12 found four black power activists guilty on a charge of conspiring to act as unregistered agents of the Russian government.

The group was found not guilty on the charge of acting as agents of a foreign government.

The guilty verdict came down against Omali Yeshitela, 82; Penny Joanne Hess, 78; Jesse Nevel, 34; and Augustus C. Romain Jr., also known as Gazi Kodzo, 38. Federal prosecutors last year brought charges against all four, alleging that they had coordinated with three Russian nationals to spread the preferred narratives of the Russian government, sow political discord in the United States, and interfere with U.S. elections.

After a trial that began on Sept. 3 and a day of deliberations that began on Sept. 11, the jury returned a verdict late on the morning of Sept. 12, finding all four defendants guilty of conspiring to act as agents of a foreign government. The jury stopped short of finding Yeshitela, Hess, and Nevel guilty on a second charge of acting as agents of the Russian government without properly identifying themselves as foreign agents.

Russian nationals Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, Aleksey Borisovich Sukhodolov, and Yegor Sergeyevich Popov are also charged with conspiracy to have U.S. citizens act as illegal agents of the Russian government within the United States.

With the verdict on the first charge, Yeshitela, Hess, Nevel, and Romain face up to five years in prison. No sentencing date has been set at this time.

Had Yeshitela, Hess, and Nevel been convicted on the second charge of acting as unregistered foreign agents within the United States, they would have faced up to 10 more years in prison.

Black Power Activists Convicted

“According to evidence presented at trial, from at least May 2015 until July 2022, Yeshitela, Hess, and Nevel agreed to act on behalf of the Russian government within the United States,” the Justice Department said in a statement following the Sept. 12 verdict.

Yeshitela, Hess, and Nevel are affiliated with the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), an organization that advocates for slavery reparations.

Information available on the APSP party website calls Yeshitela “the leader of the International African Revolution” since 1972, when he helped found the organization, which incorporates characteristics of black power movements such as the Black Panther Party.

The APSP website lists a platform, which was adopted in 1979 and amended in 1981, denouncing what it describes as “U.S. and western European political, economic, and military interference in the affairs of Africa and African people around the world.”

The APSP is an umbrella group for the Uhuru movement, its activist arm.

Federal prosecutors said Ionov connected with Yeshitela in May 2015, inviting him to Russia to discuss furthering their working relationship. Prosecutors said Yeshitela relayed email communications to Hess, Nevel, and Romain about his interactions with Ionov.

Prosecutors said Ionov founded an organization known as the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia and was taking direction from Russia’s Federal Security Service, also known as the FSB.

In one email, prosecutors said Yeshitela indicated a belief that Ionov was working for the Russian government and represented “a method by which the Russian government is engaging the U.S. and Europe in serious struggle.”

Throughout the case, prosecutors argued that Ionov directed the APSP members’ actions, including prompting them in August 2015 to submit a petition to the United Nations accusing the United States of active participation in genocide against African people.

Prosecutors say Romain was a high-level member of APSP until he broke off from the organization in 2018 and formed a black power organization called Black Hammer. Although he split from APSP, prosecutors said he continued contact with Ionov.

In February 2022, after Russian forces marched on Ukraine, prosecutors alleged that Ionov directed Romain and Yeshitela to organize demonstrations in California at the headquarters of a social media company and protest against the alleged online suppression of pro-Russian viewpoints.

Free Speech Defense

Hess’s attorneys filed an unsuccessful motion to dismiss the case in July 2023. Her attorneys argued the case violated the defendants’ free speech rights under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“None of the targeted speech of the APSP defendants was in itself unlawful,” the dismissal motion reads.

The dismissal motion argued the way APSP members interacted with Ionov was consistent with their broader advocacy efforts before 2015. The motion noted Yeshitela had spoken at a 1981 conference expressing solidarity with Nicaragua’s socialist Sandinista movement; a 1983 conference in Belfast, Ireland, expressing solidarity with the Irish Republican Socialist Party there; and other similar events throughout the years.

The dismissal motion also argued that APSP didn’t try to hide its interactions with Russians, noting APSP’s newspaper highlighted Yeshitela’s 2015 Russia visit in an article that same year.

Nevel’s attorney, Mutaqee Akbar, argued that the Sept. 12 verdict could have a chilling effect on speech.

“It intimidates people to speak out on an issue, you know, and think, ‘okay, is the government going to come to me now and say that I’m a Russian agent, or say that I’m an agent of some other government that we don’t—just don’t happen to agree with,” Akbar told The Epoch Times in a phone interview following the verdict.

Akbar said he awaits his client’s sentencing and is preparing to appeal on First Amendment grounds and other challenges to the case.

Leonard Goodman, one of the attorneys representing Hess, said the jury decision to convict his client for conspiracy but not for the greater charge of being an unregistered agent of Russia appeared contradictory.

“The jury might have been misled by the government’s closing argument which told them that a partnership with a Russian national is enough for conspiracy charge, which is not the law,” Goodman said in an emailed statement.

Attorneys for Yeshitela and Romain didn’t respond to The Epoch Times’ requests for a post-verdict comment by publication time.