Sun Sentinel
Lisa Ocker
A federal judge has set $200,000 bail for one of four men suspected of being Irish Republican Army members who were arrested in January on charges of trying to buy a surface-to-air missile.
In an order issued this week, U.S. District Judge Jose Gonzalez affirmed U.S. Magistrate Ann Vitunac`s recommendation that bail be set for Sean McCann, 35.
Vitunac recommended bail for McCann last week after finding evidence against him to be so ``slim`` it likely would not survive defense motions to dismiss charges against him at trial.
In ordering him and the others held without bail in a hearing in January, Vitunac relied on testimony that directly linked him to the conspiracy to buy a Stinger missile to use against British troopers in Northern Ireland. Testimony said that agents saw McCann spying on them during negotiations with the suspects.
But McCann was actually in Texas on that day, the government conceded in May.
McCann`s attorney, Jo Ann Harris of New York, asked for bail after learning of the misidentification.
Harris said he would be able to make the $200,000 bail with cash, property and houses pledged by family and friends in Canada and Northern Ireland. He had not yet been released on Friday from the Metropolitan Correctional Institution in Dade County, officials said.
Upon his release, he will stay with a couple in Riviera Beach and do volunteer carpentry work in migrant camps and for a drug treatment center, under the bail application accepted by the court.
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