DETROIT — Defense lawyers launched a fight Friday to have their clients released on bond, two days after prosecutors unsealed a sweeping federal indictment accusing eight pro-Palestinian activists of waging a campaign of threats and vandalism targeting University of Michigan leaders and others.

The fight emerged ahead of a 1 p.m. detention hearing in federal court in Detroit during which prosecutors are expected to push to indefinitely jail five members of the group in a high-profile case involving threats to public officials amid a flurry of such cases locally and nationwide. The government has faced criticism, however, that the case is a government attempt to punish pro-Palestinian protesters for their viewpoints amid Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza.

Group members are accused of carrying out violent activity to force the university to sever ties with Israel amid the war with Hamas in Gaza and targeted several officials, including former President Santa Ono and Regent Jordan Acker. That activity includes spray painting threats, breaking windows, and throwing glass jars filled with noxious chemicals into family homes, the indictment alleged.

Four members of the group are scheduled to be in court Friday. They are Zainab Hakim, 23, of Canton Township; Paige Feyock, 26, of Ann Arbor; Jonathan Zou, 22, of Ann Arbor; and Colin Weger, 24, of Ann Arbor. A fifth person, Ahmet Korkaya, 28, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was ordered released on bond by a federal magistrate judge in Wisconsin on Wednesday, but prosecutors have appealed the order.

Feyock’s lawyer, Cyril Hall, requested bond, saying the allegations against the UM health system employee are limited and disputed. He accused the government of using inflammatory language even though the case does not involve terrorism, hate crime, assault or firearms charges.

"Yet the government’s brief is saturated with references to Hamas, October 7, ‘martyrs,’ 'intifada,' and the Weather Underground," Hall wrote in a court filing Friday. “That rhetorical strategy is not accidental — it is designed to substitute inflammatory framing for the individualized evidentiary showing the Bail Reform Act requires. This court should reject the invitation to treat Ms. Feyock as a terrorism defendant when she has not been charged with terrorism."

What investigators say

Prosecutors portrayed Feyock as the group's countersurveillance expert, saying the pre-med student had access to a police scanner, used it frequently and talked with Korkaya about dangerous, violent activity.

The five are "ardent supporters" of Hamas, which the Justice Department has designated a foreign terrorist organization, according to the government. Prosecutors said the defendants adopted Hamas' tactics in targeting victims.

Prosecutors defended the case in a court filing Thursday.

"This prosecution is not about a lawful right to protest," Assistant U.S. Attorneys Margaret Smith, Sarah Resnick Cohen and Robert Kuhn wrote in the brief. "…They knew perfectly well they were committing criminal acts because they repeatedly joked about it in private conversations. To be clear, these threats were not just 'talk' or 'blowing off steam.'"

Prosecutors pushed to indefinitely jail five of the eight people charged in the indictment, calling them dangerous and flight risks. The majority of the group has ties to UM.

The other indicted defendants are Amatullah Hakim, 21, of Ann Arbor; Alexander Sepulveda, 23, of Chicago; and Mariam Odeh, 24, of Dearborn, a former paid employee of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.

The group of defendants is accused of targeting numerous UM officials from October 2023 through April 2025, including Ono; the chief investment officer; the provost; members of the Board of Regents, the Jewish Federation of Detroit and others.

The 63-page indictment accused the defendants of using encrypted chats to research, target and attack victims, as well as social media, during a campaign of threats that emerged amid Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza, according to the government.

"They marked their victims with threatening symbols used by Hamas, including red inverted triangles and red handprints," according to the government. "They used the internet and social media to broadcast their message to ensure their threats and commitment to continuing criminal activity were heard by their victims and others who support Israel."

The five are "ardent supporters" of Hamas, which the Justice Department has designated a foreign terrorist organization, according to the government. Prosecutors said the defendants adopted Hamas' tactics in targeting victims.

The detention hearing Friday involved two defendants who face the most serious repercussions in the case. They are Zainab Hakim and Feyock, who are charged with witness intimidation, a 20-year felony.

That charge involves allegations that the two threatened an unnamed UM student in July 2024 in hopes of preventing the victim from informing a law enforcement officer about the campaign of threats, according to the indictment.

The campaign of terror alleged by the government included members stalking targets as well as discussing ways to harm them and their relatives, prosecutors argued.

The indictment charged members of the group with conspiracy to transmit threats in interstate and foreign commerce. That crime is punishable by up to five years in federal prison.

The indictment also charges Sepulveda with destruction of property, a five-year felony.

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