The family of convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev have been flown to the U.S. from their home in Chechnya, are being housed at a Hampton Inn outside of Boston, and are being guarded 24 hours a day by at least three federal agencies.
The taxpayer-funded junket to the U.S. for the family of a Muslim terrorist is costing well over $100,000, according to a former U.S. attorney.
Survivors and their families are outraged:
“I think you’re probably talking about $100,000 plus in that neighborhood in terms of security and out of pocket costs associated with travel,” former US attorney Michael Sullivan said.
And that’s just for this trip.
Lawyer fees or even what all witnesses during the trial cost is still unclear. One defense witness, Mark Spencer of Arsenal Consulting, charged $375 per hour and billing taxpayers for $150,000.
Governor Charlie Baker said, “It’s a federal trial, it’s a federal case, the feds ultimately need to make the decisions about this.”
Baker was non-committal about how resources are being used, even state ones.
Sullivan told Sacchetti that while he understands taxpayer outrage, the whole point is to make sure it’s done right.
“The court wants to make sure that at the end of the day, the defendant gets a fair trial and would not want to add any potential issues on appeal in the penalty phase, prosecutors finished making their case yesterday,” he said.
Marathon survivor Marc Fucarile reached out to us Friday night, reacting to this news, saying that he’s outraged that Tsarnaev’s family’s expenses are being paid for when “myself and some of the other survivors and our families have to pay for our own parking at court, lunch, and we were told that if the trial was moved out of state, we’d have to pay for our own travel and lodging, there.”
The statement went on to say: “Why should our country pay for them when that family committed a violent act against our country? Not to mention, all of the free government services this family previously enjoyed on the backs of the taxpayers including government assistance and a free ride to UMass Dartmouth. In contrast, I was denied housing assistance I sought after the bombings, even though I needed a handicapped accessible apartment, and my wife lost her job as a result of the events.”
He ended by saying he feels badly for the taxpayers that have to pay for this after they were so generous to all the survivors and the One Fund.
Once this news got out, it wasn’t only the victims and their families who were upset. The Hampton Inn where the Tsarnev family is staying is being hit with complaints and cancellations.
Hosting the relatives of convicted terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is proving to be very bad for business, the manager of the Hampton Inn in Revere is finding out as complaints and cancellations pour in.
When asked how many people had called to drop their reservations since news broke that six of Tsarnaev’s relatives are staying at the Route 1A hotel while they wait to testify in his blockbuster death penalty trial, general manager Cathy Cucchiello simply said, “Enough.”
A half-dozen TV news satellite trucks lined the sidewalk outside the hotel and reporters and cameramen were bunched in a group near the exit, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Tsarnaev clan. The Boston Marathon bomber’s family members were whisked to the hotel in vans Thursday from nearby Logan International Airport.
Cucchiello banned the media from the hotel and its grounds and repeatedly asked the press to stay off the grass and on the sidewalk.
Your tax dollars are paying for the trip to the U.S. for Tsarnev’s mother’s–a woman who has constantly threatened the U.S. with Islamic-backed violence:
The outraged mother of the terrorist Tsarnaev brothers charged the Boston Marathon jury got the verdict wrong — and the U.S. will suffer for its mistake.
“They will pay for my sons and the sons of Islam, permanently!!!” threatened Zubeidat Tsarnaeva in a bitter rant sent to the media/technology website Vocativ.
“The tears of their mothers will be fuel for them in hell,” continued the lengthy missive penned after Wednesday’s conviction of her younger son, 21-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
The excuse given by prosecutors is that they don’t want to give the defense an opening in any likely appeal. Defendants with family overseas have gotten by fine in previous trials without the government flying them to the U.S. It’s silly to think an appeals judge would overturn a murder conviction because some killer’s mommy wasn’t there to testify for him.
Whatever happens to Tsarnaev, his entire family should be billed for this little excursion. There’s no good reason why taxpayers should be asked to countenance a trip to the U.S. by these anti-American, pro-terrorist people.