Background
Omali Yeshitela founded and chaired the African People’s Socialist Party, whose members included Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel. Augustus Romain belonged to the organization until 2018, when he left and formed the Black Hammer Party. Beginning in 2015, the defendants developed a relationship with Aleksandr Ionov, a Russian citizen who directed the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia and was an asset of the Russian Federal Security Service.
Ionov paid for Yeshitela’s travel to Russia, funded party activities, requested reports about sponsored events, and directed or requested political statements, media appearances, and demonstrations. Among other activities, the defendants prepared a United Nations petition, conducted an encampment tour, published pro-Russian material, produced videos, and organized protests at Meta facilities. A federal grand jury charged the four defendants with conspiring to act as agents of a foreign government without notifying the attorney general, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 371 and 951. Yeshitela, Hess, and Nevel also faced substantive Section 951 charges.
A jury convicted all four defendants of conspiracy but acquitted the three party members of the substantive Section 951 offenses. The district court sentenced Romain to 60 months’ probation and the other defendants to 36 months’ probation. They appealed on First Amendment, evidentiary-sufficiency, jury-instruction, hearsay, and prosecutorial-misconduct grounds.
The Court’s Holding
The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the conspiracy convictions. It held that Sections 951 and 371 were constitutional as applied. Although the prosecution relied partly on expressive activity, Section 951 is content neutral because it regulates conduct undertaken at the direction or control of any foreign government, regardless of the message conveyed. Applying intermediate scrutiny, the court concluded that the notification requirement narrowly advances the government’s important interest in knowing who acts on behalf of foreign governments within the United States.
The court also held that sufficient evidence permitted a reasonable jury to find that the defendants knowingly and voluntarily joined an agreement to operate under Ionov’s direction without notifying the attorney general and committed overt acts furthering that objective. “Direction,” the court explained, requires less constraint than “control” and can encompass guidance or supervision. The defendants’ ideological agreement with Ionov did not preclude an agency relationship and could support their motive to participate.
The court rejected the remaining challenges. Existing Eleventh Circuit precedent establishes that neither Section 951 nor a conspiracy to violate it requires knowledge of the federal notification requirement. Ionov’s communications with Russian security-service officers were admissible as coconspirator statements. The proposed jury instructions misstated or were adequately covered by the law, and the prosecutor’s questions describing a proposed website publishing officials’ personal information as a “doxing website” accurately reflected the evidence and did not constitute misconduct.
Key Takeaways
- Section 951’s foreign-agent notification requirement is content neutral and constitutional as applied to expressive political activity undertaken at a foreign government’s direction.
- A foreign principal may “direct” an agent through guidance or supervision even without exercising employer-like control, and ideological alignment does not defeat a finding of agency.
- The government need not prove that defendants knew Section 951 required notification to the attorney general.
- A conspiracy conviction may stand even when the jury acquits defendants of the substantive offense that was the conspiracy’s object.
Why It Matters
The decision clarifies that political advocacy retains First Amendment protection but may still furnish evidence of a Section 951 conspiracy when undertaken at a foreign government’s direction without the required notice. The court treated the statute as regulating an undisclosed foreign-agency relationship, not suppressing a political viewpoint.
The opinion also gives “direction” a broader reach than “control,” allowing Section 951 liability where a foreign principal guides requested activities even if the participants share the principal’s views and willingly carry out its plans.