Lawyer: Mole in JFK plot had sex with target's daughter

The Joint Terrorism Task Force mole in the Kennedy Airport terror plot also had sex with the young daughter of one of the targets during the investigation, a defense lawyer said in Brooklyn federal court Thursday.

Toni Messina, a lawyer for accused Guyanese politician Abdul Kadir, said that confidential informant Steven Francis, 39, the former cocaine trafficker who posed as a plotter in 2005 and 2006, "had sexual relations" with the daughter of Abdel Nur, 60, another accused co-conspirator who pleaded guilty before trial.

The explosive allegation about the government's star witness came outside the presence of the jury, as Messina asked U.S. District Judge Dora Irizarry for permission to cross-examine Francis about the "dalliance." She said the affair undermined Francis' claims he was a devout Muslim.

Irizarry said prosecutors had admitted there was "some sort of involvement with Nur's daughter," but barred the questioning as irrelevant. Prosecutors did not dispute the relationship, but declined to comment. A lawyer for Nur also declined comment.

Russell Defreitas, 67, of Brooklyn, a Guyanese-American former Kennedy cargo worker, and Kadir, 58, a former mayor of Linden, Guyana, are charged with multiple conspiracies in the alleged terror plot to blow up jet fuel tanks and pipelines at Kennedy in 2006 and 2007.

Francis, a Dominican-American Muslim convert who spent parts of eight days on the witness stand before finishing Thursday, made dozens of tapes of the plotters.

He testified he was married and his wife, in New York, was pregnant while the investigation was active. The alleged affair occurred while he was working undercover on trips to Guyana.

Francis testified he had been given lots of leeway by his government handlers - making decisions about taping some meetings and not others, and reporting in only when he decided it was safe.

The alleged affair, defense lawyers said, suggested he was a loose cannon. They said it also partially explained some discord that occurred among plotters, and contradicted his assertion on tapes that he would not engage in drinking or "fornication."

"He's putting himself up in a certain position where he's claiming a certain morality," Messina said.

But prosecutor Jason Jones said it was just an attempted smear. "The real reason clearly she wants it in," Jones said, "is to embarrass this witness in front of the jury and paint him as a philanderer."