A former Atlanta resident arrested in 2018 after a 3-year-old Clayton County boy died in a New Mexico compound has signed a tentative plea agreement.
Jany Leveille, who is from Haiti, was arrested along with four others. They are accused of conspiring in a terror plot to kill FBI agents and U.S. military members, as well as kidnapping a child, Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj.
The child was found dead at the compound on Aug. 6, 2018, which would have been his fourth birthday. The compound had been raided days earlier, resulting in the adults being arrested and 11 children being taken into protective care, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported.
Forensic specialists determined the child died months prior to his body being recovered, the Associated Press reported.
Leveille and the boy’s father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, were charged in his death.
Last week, Leveille signed a tentative agreement to plead guilty to weapons charges in exchange for a reduced sentence, the AP reported. She would accept a prison sentence of 12 to 15 years and possible fines under the agreement, which would dismiss the kidnapping and terrorism-related charges.
The agreement is pending in U.S. District Court and prosecutors could withdraw from it based on responses to proposed plea agreements with the four other defendants, the AP reported. Although Leveille had been deemed incompetent to stand trial, further mental health evaluations determined all five defendants could be tried.
Defense attorneys have said the defendants, who had lived around Fulton, DeKalb and Clayton counties before moving to the desert, are misunderstood because they are black Muslims, the AJC reported.
Prosecutors have said Leveille believes she is a practitioner of “black magic.”
Von Chelet Leveille defended his sister.
“I don’t know my sister to practice any black magic,” he told the AJC in 2019. He also disputed claims that the group was plotting terrorism.
Abdul-Ghani had many medical problems and experienced seizures and cognitive and development delays, the AJC reported. Authorities said the boy may have died because, instead of giving him seizure medicine, Wahhaj and Leveille, who was his partner, performed rituals to rid him of evil spirits.
Siraj Ibn Wahhaj was charged with 11 counts of child cruelty and is accused in court filings of teaching children on the compound to become school shooters.
The group was charged with kidnapping because Abdul-Ghani’s mother did not give permission for him to be taken on the trip and thought his father was simply taking the boy to a park in Clayton County, authorities said.
Before going to New Mexico in December 2017, at least one friend heard Siraj Ibn Wahhaj speaking of trying to rid the child of a “curse,” the friend told the AJC.
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