Two New York lawyers appeared in a Brooklyn court on Thursday to accept a plea deal that could dramatically decrease their sentences for torching an NYPD van with a Molotov cocktail during the George Floyd protests in 2020.
Colinford Mattis, 35, and Urooj Rahman, 33, have withdrawn prior guilty pleas to charges of unlawfully possessing Molotov cocktails in exchange for pleading guilty to conspiracy charges that carry a maximum sentence of five years in jail.
When they were first detained in 2020, they faced a maximum sentence of life in prison, which was later lowered to ten years in October 2021.
In exchange for today’s plea, federal prosecutors agreed to propose a jail term of 18 to 24 months.
On May 30, 2020, after an outburst of protests following Floyd’s shooting by Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin, the two were detained amid fights between protestors and police.
Surveillance cameras caught Rahman, a human rights lawyer, throwing a molotov cocktail bomb into a parked police car, lighting it on fire. The incident did not result in any injuries, but the vehicle was severely damaged.
A lighter, a Bud Light beer bottle packed with toilet paper, and a gasoline tank were discovered in the rear of a minivan driven by Mattis, a corporate attorney, according to officers. The lawyers allegedly planned to distribute and toss more Molotov bombs, according to prosecutors.