Najibullah Zazi, the Afghan-born airport shuttle driver from Aurora, was transferred Friday from Colorado to New York after a federal grand jury indicted him in connection with plotting a terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Apparently, his target was New York, according to a federal prosecutor.

“The evidence suggests a chilling, disturbing sequence of events showing the defendant was intent on making a bomb and being in New York on 9/11, for purposes of perhaps using such items,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Neff told the court (via The Los Angeles Times). Zazi, however, was arrested after September 11 this year. As Time writes, three of the case’s central questions remain unanswered, including the plot’s specific targets.

Meanwhile, Zazi maintains his innocence, a claim reiterated by his attorney, Arthur Folsom, who expects the case to take up much of his time and says his client has no money to pay him. That will make things tough, Folsom tells The Wall Street Journal: “I’d like to be able to keep making my car payments.”

As for allowing Zazi to speak to the FBI for 28 hours, a move criticized by other lawyers as foolhardy, Folsom says his client has nothing to hide: “If you’re asking if I regret having done that,” he says, “the answer is no.”

Najibullah Zazi was expected to appear in federal court in Denver today but will instead be transferred to Brooklyn, New York, after being indicted on a charge of trying to detonate a bomb in the United States. (Details of the case are still breaking.)

Until now, Zazi, an airport-shuttle driver from Aurora, had only faced a charge of lying to federal investigators during the massive terrorism probe in which he has denied any knowledge, according to The Associated Press. Zazi’s life, and that of his father, Mohammed Zazi, is a media whirlwind that seems to be spiraling out of control.

His father, charged with lying to investigators, still appears eligible for release under electronic surveillance but seems to have nowhere to go at the moment. An eviction notice was posted yesterday at the Aurora apartment of the Afghan immigrant family, which is targeted in the FBI probe (via 9News). The lease, according to the landlord, is expiring.

Meanwhile, Najibullah’s attorney, Arthur Folsom, is taking heat from Denver Post columnist Mike Littwin, who writes that Folsom will “be long remembered as the lawyer who allowed his client to spend 28 hours talking to the FBI without immunity, without the promise of a deal, with nothing in return. Lawyers lined up to question his wisdom and–off the record–his competence.”

Suspended Denver Police Corporal Michael Cordova was cleared of third-degree assault by a jury yesterday after being accused of using too much force against bicyclist John Heaney, who ran a red light near Coors Field, including slamming Heaney’s face into the pavement, breaking his teeth, and then wrongly charging the man with felony assault.

But the videotape that prompted the criminal charge against Cordova also helped clear him of the misdemeanor charge, eliciting a cheer from his family in the courtroom as the verdict was read. Juror John Mayer, 48, a teacher, says the video led to the not-guilty verdict: “We watched the tape in slow motion to see the details. It was clear that Heaney’s face wasn’t pushed into the pavement” (via The Denver Post).

Cordova refuses to comment on the case. Review the evidence–video by freelance sports photographer Jason Jewett, shot on April 4, 2008–from 9News.

As many as a dozen people with suspected connections to al Qaeda were plotting to explode bombs on U.S. soil, say authorities gathering evidence for an indictment against Najibullah Zazi, the Afghan immigrant airport shuttle driver from Aurora who is at the center of an international terrorism investigation. That’s according to the Chicago Tribune, which cites several officials who believe more serious charges will be filed against Zazi.

Zazi could be charged with providing material support to terrorists, based on an admission to investigators that he trained in weapons and explosives at an al Qaeda camp in Pakistan last year. Zazi appeared in Denver federal court yesterday on the only charge he is currently facing–lying to federal investigators (via The Associated Press). Zazi was ordered to remain behind bars but is slated for an extensive hearing Thursday on his detention.

Meanwhile, his father, Mohammed Zazi, facing an identical charge of lying, is allowed to post $50,000 in bail and serve home detention. In New York, Ahmad Wais Afzali, a prayer leader at a Queens mosque, also appeared in federal court yesterday for lying to investigators about telling the Zazis about the investigation.

As the probe unfolds, Wendy Aiello, owner of Aiello Public Relations and Marketing in Denver, has been inundated with phone calls and e-mails, some “threatening,” for aiding Najibullah Zazi’s attorney, Arthur Folsom, writes the Denver Business Journal. Here’s an unrelated issue she might be asked about: Folsom is facing a marijuana possession charge but claims the weed wasn’t his (via The Associated Press).

Today, Najibullah Zazi, the Afghan immigrant airport shuttle driver from Aurora who last week found himself suddenly at the center of a federal terrorism investigation, will appear in court. He’s not facing charges of terrorism but rather of lying to federal agents as they look into a purported plot to explode a bomb somewhere in the United States.

Even after Zazi’s arrest, the probe remains “urgent,” writes The Los Angeles Times, quoting Assistant U.S. Attorney General David Kris, who says agents around the globe are engaged in “an ongoing and fast-paced investigation,” although there is “no specific information” regarding when an attack might take place and how it might occur. Zazi was arrested late Saturday night along with his father, Mohammed Wali Zazi, in Aurora.

Ahmad Wais Afzali, of Flushing, New York, an alleged informant for New York police, was also detained. Investigators claim Zazi wrote notes highlighting a way to make a bomb and that his fingerprints were found on batteries and a scale that could be used for making a bomb, according to The Associated Press. Yet, as Denver Post columnist Mike Littwin notes, “it’s way too early to reach any conclusions about” Zazi and the arrest.

The beginning of Michael Cordova’s trial yesterday brings the Denver police officer—who allegedly slammed bicyclist John Heaney’s face into the pavement, breaking the man’s teeth, and then charging him with felony assault—back into the news.

Though the assault charge against Heaney was later dropped, a videotape that appears to support a charge of third-degree misdemeanor assault against Cordova is misleading, according to Cordova’s lawyer, Marc F. Colin (via The Denver Post). Colin argued that Cordova, who was in plain clothes and working a ticket-scalping sting, did not use excessive force, as claimed by the prosecution, but did what he was trained to do when Heaney allegedly resisted arrest repeatedly.

“What the video will show is that he did exactly what he was trained to do: Control the head and you will control the body,” Colin said.

Prosecutor Doug Jackson told jurors Cordova acted inappropriately and that his use of force was “not reasonable.” Meanwhile, the television producer who filmed the arrest testified that he will never forget the sound of Heaney’s teeth breaking on the pavement, according to 9News. The case involving Cordova is just one of many in which Denver police officers are accused of using excessive force in the community they were hired to protect.

Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year-old airport shuttle driver from Aurora, denies he is the central figure in a massive federal terrorism probe, which sparked several police raids yesterday in New York City and fears that bombers were planning an attack.

“All I can say is that I have no idea what it is all about,” Zazi tells The Associated Press, as news organizations scramble to flush out Colorado’s link to the investigation.

Citing confirmation from “two law enforcement officials,” the AP reports that Zazi was put under surveillance by FBI agents and New York Police because of suspected ties to al-Qaida terrorists and possible involvement in the manufacture of homemade explosives using hydrogen peroxide.

Zazi’s odyssey began last week after he drove to New York to address a matter concerning a coffee cart he used to operate in the city. Authorities stopped him on the George Washington Bridge and searched his car and laptop computer, but allowed him to leave, according to The Denver Post, which quotes Zazi’s attorney. (more…)

Late last month, investigators found a car that once belonged to Aaron Thompson’s family—possibly important evidence in the disappearance and alleged death of little Aarone Thompson, for which Thompson is on trial. Investigators waited until September 9, however, to notify the defense of their discovery, just after Thompson’s defense rested its case, according to The Denver Post. In criminal law that’s a no-no.

Ideally the state doesn’t want to withhold information that could free someone who is innocent.

As Judge Valeria Spencer noted in a reprimand of prosecutors, “It has left the community in an uproar about whether justice would be served in this case.” She then allowed the defense to reopen its case, leaving prosecutors Bob Chappell and Amy Richards claiming, respectively, that it simply didn’t occur to them to mention that investigators found that car and that not saying anything to defense attorneys was a one-time mistake.

On Monday, testimony focused on what was and was not found inside the car—nothing spectacular—before the defense rested again, reports 9News. Closing arguments are expected to begin this morning, and the jury could start deliberating the case as early as this afternoon.