Smallest Gallery in Orlando

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Trevor Fraser, an entertainment reporter for the Orlando Sentinel put out a call for artists on Facebook for what he called the Smallest Gallery in Orlando. The gallery consisted of a small strip of wall between two doors. I decided to incorporate my 12th Night Orlando Shakespeare Theater sketch to fill the space and my submission was approved.

Trevor and his wife Lindsay Fraser decided to host a party where guests could paint in the sketch. I arrived about an hour early and projected my sketch on the wall and then painted in the dark line work. I Did a bit of painting on the central Shakespearean actor and then relaxed along with Pam and watched as people finished the painting. f course everyone had their own style so the disparate areas didn’t entirely tie in together but that is part of the charm.

All the food served was part of a “Beet Off” between he and Lauren Delgato. Everything had beets in it, Beet hummus, beet salad, beet cupcakes. It is amazing the variety of tastes you can get from a humble beet. It was a fun afternoon.

This little mural wasn’t quite finished by the end of the party, so I am not sure if it ever was completed. There was some talk of using this sketch in the Orlando Sentinel for an article about the gallery, but there was no budget so I saved it for this site. The Noor Salman trial was just beginning and unfortunately the Sentinel also didn’t buy any of the 70 or so courtroom sketches I did for that trial. Only CNN, Channel 9 and Channel 6 and the Orlando Weekly used some of those sketches. March was a crazy month.

Parkland, Florida Memorial

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I spent the morning sketching jury selection for the Noor Salman Trial here in Orlando and then Pam Schwartz and myself drove south to Parkland, Florida where 17 students and faulty had been killed on Valentines Day in a mass shooting. Now, one month later memorial  items had to be cleared because an event was planned for this main stage in Pine Trails Park. The first impression of the town was that it is highly manicured giving the impression of suburban affluence. Seeing the memorial of course immediately reminded me of Pulse. 17 angels stood on stage with golden wings. I read the names of those killed on poster boards for the first time. In the field behind me there were 17 event tents protecting the 17 crosses. Some crosses had been switched out for stars of David.

It was a very windy day. Several tents had been blown over and more would do so as the storm progressed. Loose paper items from the memorial were blowing around, only stopping when they got wedged up against a fence. I heard that someone from a home in the neighborhood brought back items that had blown into her yard. Pam inspected the memorial and then began to return items and anchor them down.

Two high school students were looking at the memorial as I sketched. The girl collapsed to her knees. The boy put his hand on her shoulder waiting for her to regain her composure. It had only been about one month since the shooting. Then he approached me. I braced myself, he might consider my sketching to be disrespectful. Most people don’t understand why I do what I do. What he said took me off guard. He said, “I appreciate that you are sketching. We need to remember. People view sketches differently than they view photos. Thank you.” Considering that he must have been in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on the day of the shooting, this was an incredibly enlightened view. I got choked up, but cleared my eyes so I could finish the sketch.

Jeff Schwartz who heads up the Parkland Historical Society had invited Pam and I to stay at his home for the night.  Later that evening we would be meeting at City Hall so Pam could share her experiences and offer advice on how to collect and preserve the items from the memorials in Parkland.

Artegon is Long Gone

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I did a series of sketches when plans were made to open Artegon Market Place on International Drive. I was fascinated by the idea of a thriving market similar to the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul Turkey. What appeared in the first weeks were a series of cages filling the empty space of a former mall. Those cages were eventually replaced with mini themed store fronts but the place felt fractured and cut up. I had been toying with the idea of renting a space in the market to sell my art because they promised low cost rents for artists to start. RV, a local artist rented a large gallery but soon left because of broken promises by the management.

Being across from many of International Drives Premium Outlet malls where tourists spend plenty of money before heading back home, I thought there might be a ready market. For whatever reason, the market place never thrived. The center first opened in 2003 as Festival Bay Mall, but that only lasted until 2011. Artegon opened in 2014. The place seemed cursed. In the open inner court area a large Aerial Adventure Course was built with rope bridges, zip lines, suspended disks. The first week the course was opened, Robert Belvoir, 52, fell 30 feet to his death.

Lightstone Group ended its two-year experiment to take the
“property in a new direction.” Bass Pro Shop and Cinemark Theaters remain open since their buildings aren’t owned by Lightstone. Artegon’s owner recouped its $25 million investment, selling
the properties for Bass Pro Shops and Cinemark Theaters for a combined
$30 million. In the Noor Salman trial, footage was shown of Pulse Nightclub shooter Omar Mateen buying ammunition for the rifle used in the Pulse Nightclub attack along with some candy from Bass Pro Shops in the weeks before the massacre.

Jill’s Cash Box at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts

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Jill’s Cash Box is a Country Band that performed on the lawn in front of the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts from 5 p.m.to 7 p.m. on  Saturday night in April. The lawn was surrounded by a temporary metal fence for the occasion. To get inside this free concert, I had to go through a metal detector and bag search. My art supplied always raise suspicions so it takes me a bit longer to get through. This concert was two months prior to the June 12, 2916 attack on the Pulse Nightclub that left 49 people dead and forever changed our city.

AT the time of this country concert I thought all the heightened security was crazy since less that 24 people attended the concert in their folding chairs. However now looking back after Pulse and the mass shooting in Las Vegas I see that this is the new reality. Perhaps this amount of security wasn’t actually enough. I am in Las Vegas right now and once I finish this article I will be going to sketch the makeshift memorial set up by the Mandalay Bay Hotel. At that mass shooting the set up was very similar to this concert. There were security fences and bag checks to get into the concert but the entire field was exposed to the elevated rooms of the hotel across the street. This lawn in Orlando is also exposed to the Grand Bohemian hotel right across the street.

At the vigil held for victims of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in this same grass field, there were no fences, no bag checks and no metal detectors. Concerns that a copycat shooter might attack the candle light vigil must have been a very real concern but inclusion, acceptance and trusting love were far more over riding themes that night. I  found myself scanning roof tops and there were police snipers to be found. The new reality is that we can be shot by a gun toting lunatic at any time, and stripping down and being searched is not really any form of protection. In the Federal Courthouse, covering the Noor Salman Trial, I walked through the building holding my shoes, belt and possessions since I had to go through a second metal detector and search right outside the courtroom. Going to the bathroom required its own search. Security footage showed the gunman entered Pulse with his assault riffle up and ready to shoot . He walked right past security, entered the club and started immediately shooting people at point blank range.

Was Jill’s Cash Box a good concert? I honestly don’t remember. But it was certainly a more innocent time. One of the memorial phrases to come from the Las Vegas mass shooting is “Country Strong.”

NOT GUILTY verdict for Noor Salman

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On the third day of deliberations the jury in the trial of Noor Salman announced that they had a verdict. The media was alerted by the court with an e-mail. It said, “Judge Byron’s Chambers has
just notified us that the jury has reached its verdict. The verdict will
be published in open court in approximately 30 minutes. If you want to
hear the verdict you must be in either Courtroom 4B (if you have a red
media ticket) or in Courtroom 3A.” I asked the court’s media relations officer if I could get into courtroom 4B this one last time for the announcement. She agreed and I was given a blue ticket at the last moment when she was sure the room was not full, which allowed me to enter as a member of the public. I settled in quickly, put on my binocular glasses and focused only on Noor and her attorneys as the jury entered.

The verdict was handed to a clerk of the court and she read each count. The room grew silent. Noor listened with her hand to her mouth and tears in her eyes. She was found not guilty of obstruction of justice, and not guilty of aiding and abetting her husband in his plans to murder 49 people inside the Pulse Nightclub on June 12, 2016. She broke down and sobbed when she realized she had been cleared of all charges. Her uncle and a cousin seated two rows behind her also cried when they heard the news. They huddled together hugging as they sobbed. My side of the courtroom had victims’ families and survivors who were eerily silent and stone-faced. It was all over in a matter of 5 minutes. I only had enough time to scratch out the gesture of the attorney Fritz Scheller comforting Noor. I rushed back to my studio a few blocks away to finish up the sketch. I was one of the first people to exit the courtroom. The phalanx of TV cameras were waiting to hear the verdict first hand.

“Noor can go home now to her son, resume her life and try to pick up the
pieces from two years in jail,” The family spokeswoman Susan Clary
said, adding that the relatives were grateful for the verdict. Salman’s relatives and Clary said they were sorry for the victims and survivors. Defense attorney Linda Moreno also expressed admiration for the victims’ families and survivors.

“We’re
very grateful to this jury and to the Orlando community,” she said.
“Maybe this was the only community that could do this.”

The jury foremen felt the need to contact the media to explain the verdict that had been reached. “As foreperson of the jury in the Noor Salman trial I felt it
important that I present a juror’s perspective of the verdicts. I am
giving you my perspective, and not speaking for the entire jury. My
initial inclination was not to communicate with the news media at all,
however once I returned home and watched the news coverage of the
reactions to the verdicts I felt compelled to at least clarify several
misconceptions.

First, I want to express my deepest sympathy to
family and friends of the victims of this senseless tragedy. I
understand the desire to hold someone accountable for this heinous act
of violence. Omar Mateen is dead. He cannot be punished. It is only
logical the world would look next to Noor Salman.

These past few days have been very difficult. We listened
carefully to opening arguments, testimonies from both prosecution and
defense witnesses, viewed many exhibits and heard closing statements. We
received many pages of documentation from the court outlining very
specific instructions related to the charges and how we should apply the
law. We used these detailed instructions, our courtroom notes, and all
evidence presented by both sides in our deliberations.

Having said
that, I want to make several things very clear. A verdict of not guilty
did NOT mean that we thought Noor Salman was unaware of what Omar
Mateen was planning to do. On the contrary we were convinced she did
know. She may not have known what day, or what location, but she knew.
However, we were not tasked with deciding if she was aware of a
potential attack. The charges were aiding and abetting and obstruction
of justice. I felt that both the prosecution and the defense did an
excellent job presenting their case. I wish that the FBI had recorded
their interviews with Ms. Salman as there were several significant
inconsistencies with the written summaries of her statements. The bottom
line is that, based on the letter of the law, and the detailed
instructions provided by the court, we were presented with no option but
to return a verdict of not guilty.”

Day 2 Waiting for a Verdict in the Noor Salman Trial

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I arrived at the Orlando Federal Courthouse bright and early and decided to sketch the TV News cameras set up outside waiting for the verdict in the Noor Salman trial. It felt good to sketch outside after being cooped up in court for a solid month. The phalanx grew as I sketched and then a tripod was set up with all the microphones waiting for an announcement. A few reporters were curious about what I was doing and were pleased to see themselves in sketch form. I was hoping that the jury would be deliberating for a few more hours so that I had plenty of time to sketch. With the sketch complete I decided to get inside to continue waiting. Shoes and belt came off as I went through the security metal detectors. I usually don’t redress since there is a second security check at the courtroom entrance, but I was heading up to the media room today to wait.

The media room has a refrigerator, microwave and a sink, so it is quite civilized. Several reporters had ordered bagels. The channel 9 reporter across from me Ken Tyndall showed me a sketch that had been done of him by a Saint Augustine artist. It depicted him as a bad ass pirate. On top of that I knew the hand of the artist. It was done by Orlando artist KC Cali. I told him the artists name, but it didn’t seem to register.

A female reporter with immense eyelashes and plenty of mascara sat next to me. Her laptop was covered with stickers. One said something about Jihad. I was the outsider in the room, so I assumed she had been coming to this media room throughout the trial. This sketch was pretty far along, so I couldn’t place her in the scene. Her head would have been about where the bagel is and that is the center of interest. Ken Tyndall shot a cell phone photo of her and the laptop and sent it to other reporters in the courthouse.

The previous evening I had received a e-mail from the court saying that a member of the media had been banned from the courthouse for harassing members of Noor Salman’s family as they walked to their cars. As she said, “When I confronted her family outside the courthouse and asked
them if “Jihad” is an act of terrorism, they REFUSED to answer!”To me these actions read as bigotry masked as journalism. The media were reminded that interviews must be conducted in specific designated locations. It turned out that this was the blogger who had been evicted from court and she returned anyway the next day. The photo tipped off security and soon a US Marshall entered the media room and asked the woman seated next to me to “Come with me.”

She was escorted downstairs and back outside the courtroom. A second hand report claims that she wanted to shoot cell phone footage as she was being escorted out but the US Marshall took her phone until she was back outside. The same Marshall had confiscated a sketch I started of the courthouse lobby. My sketch showed the entry security system so I fully understood his concerns and gave him the unfinished sketches after I signed it. The female blogger stood outside the courthouse all afternoon shooting cell phone footage she posed online demanding her first amendment rights had been violated. I have to agree with the judges ruling that these rights do not include harassing family of the person on trial. She claimed that the media looked down on her by referring to her as a blogger. Personally I am proud to be a blogger. It allows me to freedom to report on this trial visually in a way that no other media outlet can match. The tight court rules were restrictive, but I worked within those restrictions to report during the entire length of the trial.

Waiting for the Verdict in the Noor Salan Trial.

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The prosecution and defense had finished their closing statements in the Noor Salman trial before lunch. Judge Paul G. Byron send the jury to deliberate when everyone got back from lunch. I wrote an article at my apartment figuring it was safe to be away from the court house for a while. All afternoon the jury discussed the case and the media waited in the designated media room. Since the courtrooms were closed up, I had to wait in the media room as well. This was my first time in the room since I  hadn’t really needed to use it during the trial. When I had wanted to write an article, I simply walked back to my downtown apartment. Now however I couldn’t leave. The jury could reach a verdict at any time. Several times the jury asked to see more evidence. When that would happen, the media would rush to the courtroom and Judge Byron would provide what her could to the jury. When I returned from my apartment, I got through the security for one of these evidence requests, I was just about to sit down and it was over. I hadn’t gotten my belt or shoes back on yet from the security check. The jury went back to deliberate.

Walking to the media room I ran into a reporter from CNN who wanted to buy some of my courtroom sketches for broadcast.  On the very first day of the trail, at 7:30 a.m., I stood at the entrance of the courthouse with Dan, a CNN reporter waiting for the doors to open. We discussed the case and I told him of my trials and tribulations of not being able to get into courtroom 4B. I suspect he put in a good word for me. My work apparently is to expensive to be used by Orlando news stations, but CNN knew they were getting what they paid for. These would be my only sales during the course of this month long trial. Otherwise, I was a volunteer citizen reporter with a sketchbook.

Sequestered away in the media room, we all wondered if the jury would be able  to reach a verdict on this first afternoon of deliberations. With over 64 bits of evidence and testimony to consider, that seemed unlikely to me. Reporters leaned into their laptops typing their copy for the day. I stood and drew them at work for the first time. Some reporters were in the hallway recording audio for broadcast. An intern was helping a radio reporter by reading some of the report into a microphone. He didn’t finish every task on point, but she was grateful for the help. Some reporters had been here since the beginning, following every nuance of the trial. Other reporters had been sent her at the last minute to be on hand to report the verdict only. I identified with certain reporters from Channel 9 News who felt a sense of ownership of the case, feeling it was best reported by locals who were most effected by the tragedy itself. Being in the media overflow courtroom with then each day I got to hear their opinions about how the trial was progressing.

Five o’clock approached and we all thought the jury might pull in a last minute verdict. It was past most reporters deadlines for the day’s report on the evening news. We were told that the jury might want to stay and order in food to deliberate late into the evening. If a reporter left to get dinner, they wouldn’t be able to get back into the court house for security reasons. Most security officers would go home for the night.  I was told that if the jury had decided to stay late, then a verdict was very close, but if Judge Byron insisted they they continue to deliberate then they were not close. I am not sure which was the case. While some reporters were scrambling to make take out orders, a court officer  entered the media room again and said that the jury had changed it’s mind. They were going home for the day. The jury deliberation would continue starting at 9 a.m. the next morning.

Closing Statements in the Noor Salman Trial

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There is some sensitive content and disturbing details included
within. If you feel you may be affected, please do not read this post.

 The court day began with Judge Paul G. Byron wanting to get a confirmation from Noor Salman that she did not want to testify in court. She spoke for the first time with a quiet “No.” Sarah Sweeney presented the prosecution’s closing statements. She would go through the several hundred items of evidence and use that to prove what Salman knew and what she did leading up to the attack. She said that everything Salman did was a green light for her husband to attack. Exhibits 1-99 covered Noor Salman’s written statements and evidence from her apartment. Exhibits 100-199 revolved around Pulse and the exhibits from 200 and up involved banking and spending.

The first part of the prosecution’s case involved proving obstruction of justice. She pointed out that Noor gave misleading information to Lieutenant William Hall, Agent Christopher Mayo, Agent T.J.Sypniewski, and Agent Ricardo Enriquez. She gave false statements and partial statements tat were intended to obscure the full truth. She claimed that Omar Mateen disconnected Facebook in 2013 and yet she communicated with him via Facebook in 2014. She claimed that her husband didn’t use the Internet in their apartment. She claimed that her husband was moderate, but an ISIS flag was found in the apartment and he had videos of be-headings on his computer. Mateen left their apartment on June 11, 2016 with a firearm but she claimed he only had one gun. Yet she knew there was a riffle case in their car since she wanted it removed before she took her drivers test. She lied twice saying he was at dinner with Nemo on June11, 2016. The broadest lie was that she didn’t know he was going to plan a terrorist attack.

Sweeney changed tack from everything said during the course of the trial saying that the target of the attack that night was NOT the Pulse Nightclub but rather Disney Springs. She also claimed that Noor knew the target was Disney. That would explain Noor’s odd comment when Lieutenant William Hall asked her to leave her apartment for questioning. She said, “Are they going to bring me to Disney?” Sweeney also claimed that Noor was confused during questioning and thought that Pulse was at Disney. When Noor could not reach her husband on the night of June11, 2016, she knew that he had committed the attack.

The couples finances consisted of an average monthly credit card bill of $1500. But From June 5 to 15, 2016 the couple spent $26,000. There were gaps in Mateen’s Internet browsing activity between 2:09a.m. and 9a.m. in which he might have shown his wife his intended target although it might not have been Pulse. Google history ended on his computer on June 10, 2016 and started again on June 12, 2016 with his search for Eve. 

Proving aiding and abetting was the prosecution’s biggest challenge. They needed to show that Noor provided material support to ISIS.  Showing Omar’s material support was easy. Sweeney showed a still from the Pulse surveillance camera that showed Omar shooting people at point blank range. But did Noor provide the same support as she slept at home?

The defense closing arguments by Charles Swift brought up some new points in Noor’s defense. A baby carriage and doll were found by Omar Mateen’s rental van parked near Pulse. But his son is too old for such a carriage. The new theory was that Omar intended to use the baby carriage to transport his rifle into Disney Springs without raising suspicion. If that were the case and Noor was an accomplice, wouldn’t it make more sense to have her push the baby carriage? Was she a victim or accomplice? Swift argued Mateen had no reason to involve his wife in his plan
to carry out mass murder June 12, 2016. “Why would he tell her?” he said. “I cannot think of an earthly reason for
it. I cannot think of one. What could she help him with?”

The defense acknowledged the heartbreaking grief of the community but reminded the jury to look at all the facts. Defense attorney Lisa Morino reminded the jury that Noor simply struggled educationally. She painted a picture of her as a simple housewife who loved her
child and was more concerned with reading romance novels that in world
politics.That she could not accept money for baby sitting a friends child. Pulse she stressed was a random target. “Where are all the girls at?” Omar asked the Pulse security, meaning he didn’t know where he was. Omar didn’t respect his wife. Why would he confide in her? She was dependent on him not the other way around. If he didn’t know what his target was that night, how could she know? The dead have been given the truth in this trial. The tragedy shouldn’t be pinned on Noor. The true terrorist was already killed by police on the evening of the attack. “Don’t makeNoor Salman the last victim of Omar Mateen.” Swift concluded.


After closing statements, Judge Byron read the 57 pages of jury instructions. Basically they had to decide on two counts. One was obstruction of justice and the other was aiding and abetting.

The jury instructions said convicting Salman “Requires proof that
(she was) intentionally associated with or participated in the crime,
not just proof that (she) was simply present at the scene of a crime or
knew about it.” The help can be just
about anything including, “financial services, lodging, safe houses,
false documentation or identification, communications equipment,
facilities and weapons.” If convicted, Noor could face life in prison.

The Final Defense Witness

Posted on by Thor

There is some sensitive content and disturbing details included
within. If you feel you may be affected, please do not read this post.

 Dr. Frumkin was the final witness for the defense. He is a clinical and forensic psychologist. His main office is in South Miami. He specializes in disputed confessions. This is when someone partially confesses and then retracts the confession. he was paid $390 an hour to testify and had been paid $130,000 to date to conduct interviews accessing Noor Salman.

He spoke of a college study in which students were told to write their papers on a certain computer and warned that if they pressed the alt key, the computer would crash. A remote system was set up so that the computer could be crashed remotely. When asked about the crashes, students would often confess. In another study, students would have three interviews with researchers and the idea that the student committed a felony as a child was planted into the discussion. Students would begin to accept this altered history. The Dr. noted that the average interrogation is 1.5 hours. Any interrogation over 3 hours is excessive. Noor Salman was interrogated for over 11 hours.

Frumkin has a test which gauges how a subject yields to untrue facts. He called this the yield shift sustainability score. In his talks with Noor, he found her to have odd thinking. She was alienated, self conscious and introverted. Her emotions were all over the place, like a yo-yo as she put it. She suffered from auditory hallucinations, hearing banging sounds and smelling the cologne from her deceased grandfather. She is anxious in a room alone and obsessively scratches her arms. She is anxious when she eats around other people. She calls her son every day at 3 p.m.

He said that Noor is more accommodating that 90% of the population and that she is more anxious than 96% of the population. She is also 90% more deferential and submissive than most people. The Wexler intelligence scale rated her at 4 with an IQ of 84 meaning that 86% of people are brighter than her and that she is in the lower 14 percentile range. The college Noor attended was a for profit institution and it was shut down because the institution lied about the placements of grads in the workplace.

The Reed Technique of interrogation was used on Noor Salman by the FBI. Officers at first accept denials and minimize the seriousness of the offense. Te technique is used to get facts from guilty suspects but it can also elicit false confessions from someone who is eager to please and susceptible to coercion. The interrogation escalated into confrontation and a refusal to allow denials. Step 9 of the process is writing down confessions of the suspect and having them initial those documents.

The Dr. stresses the Noor is more likely to give a false confession because of her mental illness, anxiety and the fact that she isn’t very bright. Sleep deprivation makes one more susceptible and Noor was suffering from menstrual cramps when her was being interrogated.

Sarah Sweeney of the prosecution cross examined the Dr. She wanted to know more about the GSS test which is designed to access susceptibility and suggestibility. He admitted that as intelligence goes up, the susceptibility to yield went down. Sarah noted that Noor was removed from a special ed class in 5th grade because of her academic progress. When discussing Noor’s obsessive compulsive disorder, Sarah showed a photo from Noors home of her dresser. It was covered with lots of brightly colored baubles. She asked the doctor if she moved an object on that dresser, a half inch would Noor notice? He claimed she would. I believe she was trying to prove that an obsessive compulsive person wouldn’t live in such chaos, but to me she proved the opposite. According to the Dr. Noor fully denied knowing what was going to happen but then “gave in” when an officer refused too believe her. She tried to give the officers what they wanted so she could get home to her son.

Another stipulation of testimony was read to the jury by the defense. It was by Pulse security guard Neal Whittleton who describing a short conversation
with Mateen minutes before the attack began.

Matten said to him, “Hey, why is it so slow tonight? Where are all the girls at?” That was an odd statement making it seem like Omar had no idea he was in a gay club. Whittleton
walked away from him and over to a DJ booth. He said he could feel
someone staring at him and looked up to see it was Mateen. “You’re security, right?”  “I see you here all the time.” Mateen said. Whittleton did not recognize Mateen. “He was trying to see if I had a gun
on me,” Whittleton later realized. “I had no idea that he was
the shooter.”

Defense Witnesses Took the Stand in Quick Succession

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Delvas Salman is the Uncle of Noor Salman. He has lived in Rodeo California since 1971. He spoke of Noor with affection. When he recalled when she introduced Omar Mateen to the family he remembered saying to him, “I trust you with my niece.” He got choked up with that memory and had to take a sip of water to recover his composure. Most of Mr. Salman’s testimony painted a picture of his niece as a simple and caring woman. Noor was in an arranged marriage with an abusive man before she married Omar.

Mustafa Abasin is Omar Mateen’s brother in law, married to Mateen’s sister. He was close to Noor Salman because he has children around the same age as her son. Since she didn’t have a drivers license, he would sometimes drive her places.  He said when he talked with her on the car rides it was more like having a conversation with a child.

Noor would offer to watch his children and she refused to take money for the service. She just liked taking care of kids. When she and her son were escorted to the FBI offices to be interrogated, she didn’t know she would be there as long as she was. She was interrogated for over 11 hours. Mustafa was the family member who drove to the FBI offices to pick up her son when he grew restless. Mustafa stopped inn back of the building and walked up to ring the bell. Her son was in a separate room from his mother. The FBI agent said, “She stays.” Many hours later when Noor came to pick up her son at Mustafa’s home, she was visibly upset. She was concerned about her son, fearing that she would loose him because of threads and implications from the FBI agents who spoke to her.

FBI Agent Kubini Martin was invited to the stand as a hostile witness by the defense. He was part of the original investigation team. He stated that Saddiqui Mateen, Omar’s dad was an  FBI informant from 2006 to 2016. As an informant it is kind of insane that he would have no idea of his son’s obsession with ISIS and hisplanned violence of Jihad. Saddiqui claimed ties to Al Qaeda, a militant Sunni Islamist multi-national organization founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden, as well as Hezbollah, a Shi’a Islamist political party and militant group based in Lebanon.

The FBI launched its first assessment of Omar Mateen in 2013 after he
had allegedly boasted to co-workers at G4S, a security company, that he
had terrorist connections. The FBI reported that it had closed the
investigation after Mateen told agents he made the comment to scare his
co-workers, who were reportedly mocking his religion. One year after closing that first assessment, the FBI opened a second,
spurred by Mateen’s relationship with Moner Mohammad Abusalha, a Florida
man who became the first American suicide bomber in Syria.
Mateen and Abusalha attended the same mosque on Florida’s Atlantic
coast. The FBI, decided that Mateen’s contact with Abusalha was minimal,
closed that assessment as well. The FBI considered turning the younger Mateen into an FBI informant after they investigated him in 2013 and 2014.

Noor was in the house for each of the interviews by the FBI.  She served refreshments including a cake that the agent admitted was delicious. She left the first interview but was there for most of the last interview. Saddique Mateen showed up at that interview as well. The agent speculated about why Saddique had shown up. Had Noor called him? There is also speculation that the investigations might have been shut down because Saddique as an informant told them that they should not be concerned with the actions of his son.

Joshua Horowitz is a cyber forensic consultant. He described Incognito Mode, which allows users who don’t want Google Chrome to remember their activity, to browse the web privately. Omar Mateen last used incognito mode on June 6, 2016 at 9:06 AM. Most of Omar’s searches of ISIS and other terrorist organizations however were done in plain sight. Noor Salman had confessed that on June 10, 2016, Omar showed her the Pulse website on his computer and said, “That is my target.” Joshua was tasked with looking at all the digital devices of Noor and Omar and he came to the conclusion that there is no evidence that Omar showed Noor the Pulse website on June 10th.

He had 3 computers to review along with 4 cell phones and a tablet. Of those devices only a Dell computer and 2 Samsung phones were relevant to the case. The Dell computer had never visited the Pulse website. Incognito mode doesn’t mask web traffic to sites IP addresses. He confirmed that the computer never accessed the Pulse website server. The two cell phone never accessed the Pulse website prior to June 12, 2016. Noor Salman’s phone never visited the Pulse website. Around the time Noor claimed that Omar showed her the Pulse website, he was actually at work.


Richard Connor has done digital forensics since 2006. He performed the forensics on the cell phones of Omar and Noor. He used cell phone tower information and google maps on Omar’s phone to track his activities that night. 

Around 10 a.m. Omar went to Disney Springs. It is possible that this was his intended target that night. Video surveillance showed Omar walking alone through Disney Springs to House of Blues where he brought a t shirt which he later dis-guarded. There was a large police presence near House of Blues that night. Omar left and drove past Epcot. At 12:22 a.m. he searched for Orlando Nightclubs and he put Eve into his goggle maps to get directions too the downtown Orlando Club. Mateen got near EVE (110 South Orange Avenue) about 12:55 a.m. That club had significant security at the entrance and each guest is searched before they can enter.

He did another search in Google for Orlando Nightclubs and found Pulse which he put into google maps. The exact audio directions in that female voice played in the courtroom for Omar’s every move that night. He seemed to drive aimlessly around downtown Orlando and then he drove right past my downtown apartment building before turning south on Summerlin Avenue. He arrived at Pulse around 1:12 and 1:16 a.m. at Pulse, drove around a bit and then at 1:33 a.m. he did another Google search for Eve. He started to head in that direction at 1:34 a.m. but then turned around one minute later and went back to Pulse. He started ignoring the audio  directions he was getting. At 2 a.m. he fired the first shots into helpless victims at the club who were dancing and celebrating after the evenings last call for drinks. The phone in his pocket was still giving him verbal directions as he killed 49 people.