The Story of Tony Oulai
After attempting to check baggage containing a taser gun and flight manual at an airport in Florida, Jean-Tony Oulai was arrested, suspected of involvement in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. He was held without charge for nearly a year after his arrest on September 13, 2001, and detained on the basis that he was a material witness.
In spite of Federal prosecutors’ acknowledgments that they had no evidence linking Mr. Oulai to the 9/11 attacks or any other kind of terrorism, Oulai was still shuffled from detention facilities from Florida to New York to Virginia and then back to Florida again. Thomas Walsh of Petrovich & Walsh appeared on Mr. Oulai’s behalf in the U.S. District Court in Jacksonville, Florida, and aggressively defended him throughout his multi-day trial.
Mr. Oulai was convicted of a minor crime of giving a false statement to a government investigator, stemming from a statement he made when first being questioned by authorities. Mr. Walsh, assisted by local counsel, successfully argued that Oulai should be granted time served on that conviction, resulting in his immediate release from jail.