Four black rights activists have been convicted under federal law of conspiring to act as unregistered Russian agents, the Justice Department said.
Omali Yeshitela, 82, Penny Hess, 78, Jesse Nevel, 34, and Augustus Romain, 38, face a maximum sentence of five years in prison, the department said in a statement.
A jury in Tampa, Florida found them not guilty on the more serious charge of acting as an agent of a foreign government.
Yeshitela is a founder of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) and the Uhuru Movement. Hess and Nevel are white allies of the groups. Romain is the leader of a Georgia-based subgroup called the Black Hammers.
Sentencing date has not yet been set.
According to prosecutors, the four carried out a number of actions in the United States from 2015 to 2022 on behalf of the Russian government and received money and support from Aleksandr Ionov, chairman of the Moscow-based Russian Anti-Globalization Movement group.
They said Mr Ionov used APSP, the Uhuru Movement and Black Hammer to promote Russia’s views on politics, the war in Ukraine and other issues.
Ionov’s “influence efforts were directed and supervised” by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the country’s intelligence agency, the Justice Department said.
Mr Ionov and two alleged FSB agents – Aleksey Borisovich Sukhodolov and Yegor Sergeyevich Popov – have also been indicted in the United States in connection with the case but have not been arrested.
The Justice Department said Americans knew Mr. Ionov worked for the Russian government.
Among the actions cited by prosecutors was APSP’s drafting of a petition to the United Nations in 2015 accusing the United States of committing genocide against the people of Africa.
Mr Ionov is also accused of trying to influence the 2017 mayoral election in St Petersburg, Florida, where Nevel ran unsuccessfully.
Leonard Goodman, Hess’s attorney, told the Tampa Bay Times that the four were charged to censor their pro-Russian views. “This case has always been about freedom of speech,” he told AFP.
Yeshitela said after his conviction that “the most important thing is that they can’t accuse us of working for anybody but black people,” the Tampa Bay Times reported. “I’m willing to be accused and convicted of working for black people.”
Mutaqee Akbar, who represented Nevel, said the defendants planned to appeal their convictions.
