Still Feisty, Despite Short Sentence

A civil rights lawyer convicted of helping a jailed terrorist sheik communicate with his disciples was sentenced to just over two years in prison Monday, winning extraordinary leniency from a judge who took into account her career of standing up for the most unpopular clients.

Lynne Stewart, 67, had faced up to 30 years in prison, but was sentenced to just two years and four months in a case that the federal government once hailed as a major victory against terrorism.

Stewart smiled through tears as the judge announced the sentence. Later, she hugged family and supporters and was handed two bouquets of red roses as she walked out of the courthouse.

"This is a great victory against an overreaching government," Stewart told dozens of supporters outside the lower Manhattan courthouse after U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl imposed the two-year, four-month sentence.

Some think U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl cut Stewart a break. CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen partially attributed the judge's decision to "her age, her health, her expression of remorse and regret, and her long history of dedicated work as a defense attorney, which has to have counted for something.

"But she's lucky to get such a short sentence and she knows it," said Cohen.

Stewart is the only U.S. lawyer to have been indicted on terrorism charges.

The judge rejected demands by the government that Stewart be sentenced to 30 years in prison for convictions of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorist organizations, making false statements and defrauding the government.

The sentence came after a year in which Stewart was treated for breast cancer and diabetes, conditions the judge said would make it difficult for Stewart in prison.

The judge permitted her to remain free pending appeal, though he said there was ample evidence she had smuggled messages between her client, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, and senior members of an Egyptian-based terrorist organization - messages he said could have had "potentially lethal consequences."

CBS News Investigative Unit producer Phil Hirschkorn notes that prior to distributing Rahman's message, Stewart had agreed in writing to abide by special prison rules muzzling Rahman to the outside world and promised not to reveal their discussions.

There was little dispute that she broke the rules, says Hirschkorn, but Stewart considered them unconstitutional. Stewart was found guilty of all five counts, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S., providing and concealing material support for a terrorist group, and making false statements.

At the sentencing Monday, the judge noted that no one was harmed as a result of Stewart's actions.

Rahman, 68, who has diabetes and heart problems, is incarcerated at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri.

U.S. Attorney Michael J. Garcia said he is disappointed by Stewart's sentence, along with a one-year, eight-month prison term given to Mohamed Yousry, an Arabic interpreter, and a 24-year sentence imposed on Ahmed Abdel Sattar, a U.S. postal worker. He said prosecutors will consider an appeal of Stewart's sentence.

Prosecutors argued Sattar should be imprisoned for life and Yousry for 20 years in prison for their roles in helping Abdel-Rahman communicate, despite special measures imposed to cut him off from the world as he served his life sentence for terrorism.

Abdel-Rahman was convicted in plots to assassinate Egypt's president and blow up five New York landmarks, including the U.N. building and the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels. Prosecutors have said Stewart and the co-defendants helped spread Abdel-Rahman's call to kill those who did not subscribe to his extremist interpretation of Islamic law.

Stewart was prepared for prison when she arrived at court with medication, books and a pair of sweatpants, but she left vowing to continue her fight to win an appeal, regain her attorney's license and "make me back into the lawyer I was."

Although the judge called the crimes "extraordinarily severe criminal conduct," he cited more than three decades of dedication by Stewart to poor, disadvantaged and unpopular clients that had left her destitute even though she once worked on more than 70 cases at a time.

Stewart became a civil rights lawyer and a champion of the downtrodden in the 1960s after becoming upset at racism and other societal ills of the era.

"Ms. Stewart performed a public service, not only to her clients but to the nation," Koeltl said.

Stewart also represented many controversial clients, including Black Panthers, leaders of the 1960s student activist group Weather Underground, a former mob hit man and a man accused of trying to kill nine police officers.

Outside court, Stewart acknowledged her good fortune, saying she thought the sentence was "a victory for doing good work all one's life."

She added: "You get time off for good behavior usually at the end of your prison term. I got it at the beginning."

About 150 Stewart supporters who could not get inside the capacity-filled courtroom stood outside the courthouse, chanting "Free Lynne, Free Lynne." Another 200 supporters jammed the hallways outside the courtroom.

What troubled many defense attorneys about the Stewart case, reports Hirschkorn, was that the government secretly recorded Stewart's visits with Rahman in a Minnesota prison in 2000 and 2001 – supposedly privileged attorney-client meetings - a type of surveillance which can now be done under the Patriot Act.

Joshua Dratel, a Stewart lawyer, called the case "a tragedy of epic proportions" caused by Stewart's habit of caring for clients after they have been sentenced.

He said a harsh sentence would have resulted in lawyers "giving up zealous advocacy."

In a letter to the sentencing judge, Stewart proclaimed: "I am not a traitor."

"The end of my career truly is like a sword in my side," Stewart said before her sentence was announced. "Permit me to live out the rest of my life productively, lovingly, righteously."

In a pre-sentence document, prosecutors told Koeltl that Stewart's "egregious, flagrant abuse of her profession, abuse that amounted to material support to a terrorist group, deserves to be severely punished."

Stewart said she did not intentionally enter into any plot or conspiracy to aid a terrorist organization. She believes the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks made her behavior intolerable in the eyes of the government and gave it an excuse to make an example out of her.

"The government's characterization of me and what occurred is inaccurate and untrue," she wrote. "It takes unfair advantage of the climate of urgency and hysteria that followed 9/11 and that was relived during the trial. I did not intentionally enter into any plot or conspiracy to aid a terrorist organization."

"This case had nothing to do with September 11, your honor," Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Dember said at the sentencing. "What she was doing was smuggling terrorism messages and smuggling out Abdel-Rahman's responses."

Stewart was arrested six months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The indictment was announced in 2002.