ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Five residents of a ramshackle desert compound in New Mexico are scheduled for arraignments and detention hearings after being indicted by a federal grand jury on firearms and conspiracy charges.
FILE – In this Aug. 29,2018, file photo, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, from left, and Jany Leveille talk with with attorneys Kelly Golightley and Tom Clark after a hearing on a motion to dismiss in the Taos County Courthouse. Federal prosecutors say the FBI has arrested five former residents, including Wahhaj and Leveille, of a ramshackle compound in northern New Mexico on firearms and conspiracy charges as local prosecutors dropped charges in the death of a 3-year-old boy at the property. Taos County District Attorney Donald Gallegos said Friday, Aug. 31, his office will now seek grand jury indictments involving the death. (Eddie Moore/The Albuquerque Journal via AP, Pool, file)
Federal prosecutors say the group was preparing for violent attacks on government, military, educational and financial institutions at the time of their arrests last month.
Jany Leveille, 35; Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, 40; Hujrah Wahhaj, 37; Subhanah Wahhaj, 35; and Lucas Morton, 40, are scheduled to appear Wednesday afternoon in federal court in Albuquerque.
The grand jury indictment alleges they transported firearms and ammunition from Georgia to New Mexico in December 2017.
Prosecutors said the five, all members of an extended family, established a training camp and firing range in Amalia, New Mexico, where they stored firearms and ammunition and engaged in firearms and tactical training “as part of their common plan to prepare for violent attacks.”
Eleven children were removed from the squalid compound near the Colorado state line during an Aug. 3 raid. Taos County authorities returned three days later and recovered the body of a severely disabled 3-year-old boy who they say was kidnapped by his father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, in Georgia.
Leveille is a native of Haiti and the mother of six children taken into state custody during the compound raid, according to authorities who said she has been in the U.S. for more than 20 years after overstaying her non-immigrant visitor visa.
The conspiracy charge alleges the four others conspired to provide Leveille with firearms and ammunition from at least November 2017.
Prosecutors have presented evidence that Siraj Ibn Wahhaj provided some of the children with firearms training, including tactical skills such as speed-loading guns and firing while in motion.
Along with rifles, handguns and ammunition, authorities said they found books on being effective in combat and building untraceable assault-style rifles during the compound raid.
Von Chelet Leveille has said his sister and the rest of the group at the compound were misunderstood and he disputed allegations that the children were being taught to commit school shootings.
He said the two older children asked to be taught to shoot, and that the family’s use of firearms was legal and innocent. He also said the group went to the desert because they no longer wanted to live as American Muslims in a society mostly populated by non-Muslims.
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