FORSYTH COUNTY, Ga. — A federal judge has denied bond release for a Cumming man charged in an alleged plot to attack the White House, Statue of Liberty and other federal buildings.
Hasher Taheb, 21, appeared in a nearly two-hour detention hearing Thursday. His mother, who offered the equity in her Forsyth County home for his bond, broke down in tears as a U.S. marshal walked Taheb into the courtroom.
In a first appearance following his arrest last week, Taheb indicated he’d seek private counsel in the case, but Judge Alan Baverman confirmed Taheb’s lack of financing led to public defender appointment.
While the defense argued Taheb had essentially been set up by the FBI, prosecutors maintained undercover agents moved according to an elaborate terrorist plot sketched by Taheb, leading to the Cumming man’s arrest.
Channel 2 Action News first reported on Taheb last week, as federal agents searched his mother's home following Taheb's arrest in a Gwinnett County Lowe's parking lot.
On Thursday, an FBI agent testifying in the detention hearing confirmed no weapons were recovered during the home search, but they described portions of their nearly yearlong investigation into Taheb that culminated with his arrest last week.
A federal prosecutor talked about Taheb's alleged December attempts to unsuccessfully recruit two other people to join the attack plan, his request for the weapons and his meeting with an undercover agent last Wednesday that began in a local Starbucks.
The pair headed to a rental car lot and back to a Lowe’s in Gwinnett County, where they’d exchange their cars for weapons, including explosives and a launcher.
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Prosecutors said Taheb had already provided detailed sketches of the White House floor plan, as well as notes on how he would launch the weapons in an attack the very next day.
Taheb had also recorded a video that he’d planned to broadcast following the attack, according to prosecutors.
That video would explain the radicalized reasoning behind the plan, they said, as they submitted photos of Taheb loading the weapons in the rental car ahead of his arrest.
Taheb’s defense argued that Taheb had neither the access nor the knowledge to operate any weapons until he came in contact with undercover agents. They called the “fantastical” plan to attack the White House a plot that the 21-year-old was incapable of actually pulling off.
“There’s no risk of flight here,” said attorney Vionnette Johnson. “We have a very religious, very young man who knows nothing about guns.”
They went on to describe an all-American upbringing of Taheb, who was born and raised in metro Atlanta. He is the son of a hairdresser and a gas station manager who died when Taheb was 7 years old.
Taheb, a middle child, was required to do chores alongside his two other siblings, attend and volunteer at the mosque and go to to school and work.
Taheb, a 2015 graduate of Forsyth Central High School, went on to study for two semesters at Georgia Gwinnett College. At the time of his arrest, Taheb was only making $8.15 an hour in a service industry job, his attorney said.
Taheb’s defense suggested 24/7 home detention pretrial release in which Taheb would be unable to leave his mother’s house unless he had the court’s permission.
“She wants him home," Johnson told Baverman as she talked about a strong support system.
In describing a tight family dynamic, there was no mention of cases Channel 2 uncovered in Forsyth County court documents that include orders for Taheb to stay away from his home and mother in a 2015 criminal trespassing case.
The documents described damage to the home, and the solicitor's office confirmed to Channel 2 investigative reporter Nicole Carr that much of the case documents were sealed because Taheb successfully completed a pretrial diversion program in 2016.
From Forsyth County Sheriff's Office incident reports, Channel 2 Action News also learned of previous drug trouble and accusations from one of Taheb's neighbors that he'd tried to run the man over in their Cumming neighborhood.
After hearing Thursday's arguments, Baverman determined Taheb was a safety risk who was either "gullible" or a "mastermind" behind the alleged plot.
Cox Media Group
