Jeffrey Battle
Jeffrey Leon Battle was a member of a terrorist group dubbed the Portland Seven, some members of which attempted to travel to Afghanistan shortly after 9/11 in order to aid the Taliban. He refused to cooperate with the government and was sentenced to eighteen years in prison after pleading guilty to seditious conspiracy and levying war against the United States. He had two years added to his sentence for refusing to testify before a grand jury. Background Jeffrey Leon Battle had a checkered past. According to an article in the Star-Ledger, "Battle was a ne'er-do-well, a one-time Mary Kay cosmetics representative who was trying to wriggle out of his commitment to the U.S. Army reserves after washing out in boot camp." Jeffrey Leon Battle moved to Portland in the late 1990s from Houston, Texas, where he served as a bodyguard for New Black Panther leader and community activist Quanell X. First contact with law enforcement On September 29, 2001, a group of men from what would later be termed the Portland Seven were engaged in shooting practice at a gravel pit in Skamania County, located in southern Washington, including Battle, Ford, al Saoub and Ali Khaled Steitiye, who was not