Judge in Stock Adviser's Trial Bars Testimony on Terrorism

[Desperadoe]

For five days, jurors have seen dozens of e-mail messages, a litany of Internet chat room logs and countless company reports as federal prosecutors presented their conspiracy case against Anthony Elgindy, the San Diego stock adviser accused of obtaining illegal information from an F.B.I agent to manipulate the stock market.

But they will not hear evidence supporting an assertion that prosecutors once made suggesting that Mr. Elgindy might have had advance knowledge of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a judge said yesterday.

The matter came up in the fourth full day of testimony in United States District Court in Brooklyn. Derrick Cleveland, a former business associate of Mr. Elgindy who is now a government witness, was asked by an assistant United States attorney, Kenneth Breen, about a mid-September 2001 F.B.I. investigation into Mr. Elgindy. When Mr. Cleveland responded that the investigation was related to "terrorism," Judge Raymond J. Dearie brought the hearing to a halt.

"This case has nothing to do with terrorism," he said to the jury in a planned set of instructions. "You will hear no evidence that Mr. Elgindy or others were involved in 9/11."<snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/09/business/09promoter.html