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Magistrate Advises Allowing Evidence In Explosives Case

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By ELAINE SILVESTRINI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 29, 2008

TAMPA - TAMPA - A federal magistrate has recommended that prosecutors be allowed to use evidence taken from the car of two University of South Florida students after a traffic stop in South Carolina last summer.

The report by U.S. Magistrate Mark Pizzo recommends that U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday deny motions by attorneys for Ahmed Mohamed and Youssef Megahed that the evidence be suppressed.

The pair were charged with illegally transporting explosives after deputies found what were thought to be pipe bombs in their trunk during a traffic stop on Aug. 4 near Goose Creek, S.C. In addition, Mohamed has been charged in an indictment with trying to help terrorists by demonstrating the use of explosives.

The defense had argued that deputies pulled over the car and searched it because of the color of the two Egyptian nationals' skin. A dashboard video of the stop shows deputies referring to the two men as "Taliban" and terrorists and joking about whether they went to suicide bomber school.

But Pizzo wrote in a 14-page report that deputies had probable cause to stop the car for speeding, the brief questioning of the defendants was not unreasonable, and the driver consented to the search. Pizzo also concluded there were legitimate reasons to be suspicious of the pair.

After signaling the car to pull over, Pizzo wrote, the deputy followed the car for about a mile before it pulled off the highway. The deputy "could see the two quickly reach toward the center as if moving or hiding something." As the deputy approached Mohamed, the driver, he could see Megahed, the passenger, "disconnect wires from a laptop, throw them to the back seat, abruptly shut the laptop and sit upright," Pizzo wrote.

Mohamed produced a temporary foreign driver's license but didn't have a registration, the magistrate noted. Megahed explained that his brother owned the car.

After that, two deputies conferred and "pondered the obvious," Pizzo wrote. "The two men were likely from the Middle East; they were driving the opposite direction from the one nearby tourist destination [Charleston]; they were headed north on what would be a two-lane stretch of rural highway toward no obvious point of interest; their presence in Goose Creek did not match the officers' usual roadside encounters."

The two deputies, Pizzo acknowledged, "also jumped to stereotypical assumption based on Mohamed's and Megahed's ethnicity – they were terrorists." But, the judge added, "Aside from these crass, baseless remarks, [the deputy] also articulated rational, unbiased observations."

Reporter Elaine Silvestrini can be reached at (813) 259-7837 or esilvestrini@tampatrib.com.

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