WORCESTER - The founder of a Muslim charity was sentenced yesterday in U.S. District Court to a year in prison and fined $10,000 for lying to an FBI agent when he denied traveling to Afghanistan in 1994-1995.
In sentencing Emadeddin Z. Muntasser, former president of Care International Inc., a defunct Boston charity, Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV doubled the maximum amount of prison time and the fine called for under the federal advisory sentencing guidelines. Mr. Muntasser, 43, is a former Worcester resident and Worcester Polytechnic Institute graduate living in Braintree. He must report for his prison sentence within four weeks.
The U.S. attorney’s office called for a five-year prison term, saying the case is being watched around the world to see how the United States will treat someone the Justice Department said abused the tax system to send money to organizations that have since been branded by the government as terrorists. But Mr. Muntasser’s lawyers pointed out that guidelines called for a sentence of between zero and 6 months and that the U.S. Probation Department recommended a sentence within that range on a simple false statement case.
Mr. Muntasser was detained Jan. 11, the day a federal jury convicted him in Boston on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States and scheming to conceal material facts as well as lying to a federal agent. But expectations that Mr. Muntasser might be freed on a sentence of time served were raised after Judge Saylor reversed the jury verdict on the two most serious charges and freed Mr. Muntasser June 13 on conditions to await sentencing yesterday. Read more ...
In sentencing Emadeddin Z. Muntasser, former president of Care International Inc., a defunct Boston charity, Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV doubled the maximum amount of prison time and the fine called for under the federal advisory sentencing guidelines. Mr. Muntasser, 43, is a former Worcester resident and Worcester Polytechnic Institute graduate living in Braintree. He must report for his prison sentence within four weeks.
The U.S. attorney’s office called for a five-year prison term, saying the case is being watched around the world to see how the United States will treat someone the Justice Department said abused the tax system to send money to organizations that have since been branded by the government as terrorists. But Mr. Muntasser’s lawyers pointed out that guidelines called for a sentence of between zero and 6 months and that the U.S. Probation Department recommended a sentence within that range on a simple false statement case.
Mr. Muntasser was detained Jan. 11, the day a federal jury convicted him in Boston on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States and scheming to conceal material facts as well as lying to a federal agent. But expectations that Mr. Muntasser might be freed on a sentence of time served were raised after Judge Saylor reversed the jury verdict on the two most serious charges and freed Mr. Muntasser June 13 on conditions to await sentencing yesterday. Read more ...
Source: Worcester Telegram & Gazette
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