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| Jailed Two Years, Immigrant Holds Out Until Charges Dropped |
| By Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |
| Published: 04/19/2002 |
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For nearly two years, Moustapha Magassouba has been in the Allegheny County Jail, dismissing lawyer after lawyer who suggested that he plead guilty, along with 20 other defendants, in a $350,000 check-fraud scheme. Yesterday, his persistence paid off when a prosecutor asked a judge to erase the charges against him. 'I'm going to be free,' said the 37-year-old immigrant from Guinea, West Africa, an electrician who has lived in the United States since 1990. But Magassouba is not going home just yet to his wife and son in New York City. Though the check fraud case suddenly disappeared, Magassouba was escorted in handcuffs back to his cell at the county jail. He is being held on a detainer by the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service. His defense attorney said he expects INS to hold a deportation hearing based on the criminal charges on which he had been arrested. 'I told them ever since the first day that I did not commit this crime,' Magassouba said. Paulo Nzambi, the attorney who in January was appointed by Common Pleas Judge John A. Zottola to represent Magassouba, said, 'In this system, you're innocent until proven guilty. The fact of the matter here is that innocence has been locked up for 20 months. 'They offered all kinds of pleas. In the end they offered him one count of conspiracy,' Nzambi said. 'I told them that my client doesn't want to plead because he didn't do anything.' Magassouba has no record of previous arrests or convictions. |
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