Frank James, the 63-year-old gunman who opened fire in a New York subway in early 2022 and ended up injuring 10 people, is expected to enter a guilty plea in Brooklyn’s federal court this week.
Besides those 10 people who were injured directly by his shooting, 19 other people also sustained injuries from other causes in the mayhem.
Prosecutors told Judge William F. Kuntz II in a letter late last week that they plan to ask him to go beyond the roughly 32-year to 39-year sentence that federal sentencing guidelines would recommend. James planned the attack for years and endangered the lives of dozens of people, prosecutors said in the letter.
Before his rampage on April 12, 2022, James had been actively promoting violence and anti-Semitism on social media. In one of his posts, James said, “O black Jesus, please kill all the whiteys”.
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James had been scheduled to stand trial in late February.
His lawyers informed the judge on Dec. 21 that James wanted to plead guilty. Prosecutors say he plans to plead guilty to 11 charges without a plea agreement.
Ten of those charges — each one corresponding to a specific victim — accuse him of committing a terrorist attack against a mass transportation system carrying passengers and employees.
The 11th charge accuses James of discharging a firearm during a violent crime.
James has previously declined to attend at hearings, so last week, Kuntz issued an order directing the U.S. Marshals Service to use “all necessary force” to ensure that James shows up for Tuesday’s plea proceeding. When James, who is being held in a federal prison, was given a court date in October, he objected to being taken there, but he later showed up after Kuntz issued a similar order allowing him to be coerced into appearing if necessary.
