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Tsarnaev friend wants conviction tossed, citing Supreme Court ruling

Azamat Tazhayakov, a college friend of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Jane Flavell Collins/File

One of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s college friends, convicted for obstructing the Boston Marathon bombing investigation, is demanding that his conviction be thrown out in light of a recent US Supreme Court ruling.

Attorneys for Azamat Tazhyakov argued that, under the charges filed against him by the government, he could only be convicted for throwing out the thumb drive that was in a backpack that was taken from Tsarnaev’s room at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, not the other materials in the backpack — Vaseline and fireworks that had been tampered with.

In a motion filed in US District Court in Boston, the defense attorneys said Tazhayakov deserves a new trial because prosecutors never proved that he knew the 8-gigabyte Kingston Data Traveler thumb drive was in the backpack.

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Prosecutors responded to the defense, saying that, in their interpretation of the law, the act of throwing out the entire backpack was illegal.

“The jury’s carefully considered verdict was well supported by the evidence,” the prosecutors said.

The obstruction of justice law that US Attorney Carmen Ortiz’s office used to prosecute Tazhayakov and another college friend of Tsarnaev was passed under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. It called for a punishment of up to 20 years in prison for the destruction of “any record, document, or tangible object” to obstruct an investigation.

But the Supreme Court ruled in Yates v. United States last month that the word “tangible object” in the law — which was meant to discourage document shredding by Wall Street executives — meant an object “used to record or preserve information.”

After the Yates decision, the defense argued, the prosecutors had to prove that Tazhayakov knew about the thumb drive.

“The government proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the backpack contained a thumb drive, but it certainly never proved beyond a reasonable doubt that [Tazhayakov] knew of its existence,” the attorneys wrote.

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Ortiz’s office, in its reply to Tazhayakov’s request for a new trial, said the backpack itself was the object that could be “used to record or preserve information.”

Prosecutors compared the backpack to a file cabinet or briefcase containing information.

“The backpack at issue in this case was in essence a briefcase that could be worn on the back,’’ prosecutors wrote. “Indeed, Tsarnaev’s backpack contained paper records evidencing Tsarnaev’s ownership of the backpack and enrollment as a student’’ at UMass-Dartmouth.

“It is certainly within common understanding, and the jury could reasonably infer, that the primary use to which a student typically puts such a backpack is to keep the documents and records it contained,’’ prosecutors wrote.

During the trial, Tazhayakov was also charged with obstruction of justice relating to a laptop belonging to Tsarnaev. The laptop, under the new view of the law from the US Supreme Court, would likely still qualify as a “tangible object’’ containing information, but jurors acquitted him on that count.

Tsarnaev and his two friends were all students at UMass-Dartmouth at the time of the April 15, 2013, bombings. Tazhayakov may be called as a witness in Tsarnaev’s ongoing death penalty trial in Boston, where his attorneys have acknowledged that he and his late brother, Tamerlan, were responsible for the bombings.

US District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock has not yet scheduled a hearing on the request by Tazhayakov to throw out the conviction entirely or to grant him a new trial. Federal prosecutors could still charge Tazhayakov under other federal laws if Woodlock tosses the conviction, attoneys said.

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Separately, a second friend of Tsarnaev, Dia Kadyrbayev, has pleaded guilty and faces up to seven years in prison.

A third friend, Robel Phillipos, was convicted of lying to federal investigators and faces up to eight years in prison when he is sentenced. Tazhayakov testified for the prosecution during Phillipos’s trial and said he hoped it would lead to a reduced prison sentence.


Patricia Wen can be reached at wen@globe.com. John R. Ellement can be reached at ellement@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @JREbosglobe.