By SAMANTHA HENRY
(AP) - Two New Jersey men were each sentenced to at least
20 years in prison Monday after pleading guilty to conspiring to join an armed
Islamic group in Somalia with ties to al-Qaida.
Mohamed Alessa, of North Bergen, was given a 22-year
sentence, and Carlos Almonte, of Elmwood Park, was given a 20-year prison term.
Attorneys for 23-year-old Alessa and the 27-year-old
Almonte had sought to portray the men, who were teenagers when they came to the
attention of law enforcement, as troubled youths spurred to radicalism under
the influence of a man who was actually an undercover officer working for the
New York City Police Department.
Federal prosecutors sought to counter that portrayal by
arguing the two were dangerous, calculating, would-be terrorists bent on
joining an overseas organization in order to kill "disbelievers in Islam."
Prosecutors said the two had carried videos on their cellphones of American
soldiers being beheaded, and considered Maj. Nidal Hasan, the alleged
perpetrator of the worst mass shooting on a U.S. military installation at Fort
Hood, in Texas, a role model.
"Your honor, if you send a message that homegrown
violent extremism will be met with serious consequences, it will be less likely
that others will engage in this crime," Asst. U.S. Attorney L. Judson
Welle argued before U.S. District Judge Dickinson Debevoise, who oversaw the
case in federal court in Newark.
Attorney Stanley L. Cohen, representing Alessa, said his
client's 22-year sentence was far too harsh for an individual Cohen described
as so immature that he had asked the undercover informant if he could take his
beloved pet cat Princess with him to Egypt and suggested the trio might go
nightclubbing and surfing while there.
Cohen questioned why his client, who was arrested with
Almonte in June 2010 before they could board separate planes to Egypt at New
York's Kennedy Airport, received a sentence two years longer than American
Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh, and five years longer than convicted
terrorism plotter Jose Padilla.
"I think the sentence is excessive and
unwarranted," Cohen said. "Although I think the judge is very
diligent, I think these cases are very difficult, because we live in times when
people are frightened and scared, and people have lost the ability to
differentiate between reality and perception, and it's very difficult to jump over
that hurdle."
Alessa and Almonte, turning frequently to look at their
respective family members who packed the courtroom, each spoke before their
sentencing. Their statements were similar, emphasizing the remorse for the pain
they had caused their families, and arguing they had been misguided, troubled
young people who never really intended harm.
"I've learned it's not a game. I have no one to
blame but myself. My family is paying the price now." Alessa said,
apologizing profusely for the "anguish" and "shame" he had
brought on his mother and father, who were in the courtroom, and who could be
heard wailing and shouting in the courtroom hallway following the sentencing.
He spoke of being a once-troubled teenager prone to
outbursts of anger that he didn't understand, and spoke of his longing to be
given a second chance.
"After all, I only consider myself a Jersey
boy," he added.
Almonte, known as Omar, echoed Alessa's statement of
being an isolated, lonely teenager who had looked up to the informant who had
seemingly taken the pair under his wing, become their friend, and urged them to
channel their anger into joining militant groups overseas.
Both Cohen and Almonte's attorney, James Patton, argued
it was the undercover NYPD officer who had repeatedly insisted the two get
passports and buy tickets to Egypt, from where they allegedly would move on to
Somalia.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Welle countered with transcripts
of audio tapes made by the informant, purporting to show Alessa and Almonte
relishing the thought of getting the chance to kill American soldiers overseas.
The two men viewed multiple online videos, including some they kept on their
cellphones that showed U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan under sniper
attacks, ambushes, bomb attacks, executions and beheadings, according to Welle.
"I like watching (disbelievers) get
slaughtered," Almonte allegedly said, according to a transcript of an
undercover tape shown in court.
Alessa and Almonte each pleaded guilty in 2011 to a
charge of conspiring within the United States to
murder individuals outside the U.S. by trying to join
al-Shabab, a designated terrorist organization.
The attorneys said they would review the judge's lengthy
sentencing memorandum, but that appeals were unlikely because of the terms of
the defendant's plea agreements.
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