Convicted terrorist sentenced for selling methamphetamine
Mar 29, 2022, 4:29 PM | Updated: 4:57 pm
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A convicted terrorist from Southern California was sentenced to more than 15 1/2 years in prison for selling drugs to an undercover FBI agent, prosecutors said.
Ahmed Binyamin Alasiri, 45, of Garden Grove was sentenced Monday after pleading guilty last fall to distributing methamphetamine, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
Alasiri also received a concurrent two-year sentence for violating the terms of his supervised release from federal prison.
Alasiri sold 1.7 kilograms (3.8 pounds) of methamphetamine to an undercover agent in three transactions in 2020, a year after he was released from federal prison, prosecutors said.
In 2007, Alasiri, who was then known as Kevin Lamar James, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to levy war against the United States government through terrorism. His co-conspirators staged armed robberies of gas stations “to raise money for attacks Alasiri planned on U.S. military operations and Israeli and Jewish facilities in Southern California,” the U.S. attorney’s office said in a statement.
He served 16 years in federal prison before being released in 2019.
Alasiri “was industrious and obtained legitimate full-time employment, yet he did not hesitate to traffic in drugs to earn income,” prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum.
In his plea agreement, Alasiri said he had “family members who were drug traffickers and that he himself sold drugs to customers,” according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
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