Material Support to Terrorists—Sentencing

Fadl Mohammad Maatouk has been sentenced to five years in federal prison for conspiring to help Hezbollah, which is a designated foreign terrorist organization.^[1] The former flea market owner pleaded guilty in January.^[2] As part of his plea agreement, Mr. Maatouk admitted that “in a May 2003 telephone call with his brother, he agreed to lend a machine gun to a Hezbollah member, who planned to use it to protect one of the group’s leaders in southern Lebanon.”^[3] He also admitted to giving Hezbollah members camouflage fatigues while visiting Lebanon in 2003.^[4]

He was arrested in March 2005 on unrelated drug paraphernalia and money laundering charges.^[5] Mr. Maatouk begged for mercy from the court, but US District Court Judge Harvey Schlesinger imposed the maximum sentence nonetheless and also imposed five years of probation after he gets out of jail.^[6]

Though Mr. Maatouk got the maximum five year penalty for a conspiracy charge, he faced far more jail time based on the 17-page indictment returned against him in November of 2004, that charged with him with false statements, money laundering, and mailing drug paraphernalia.^[7] Those charges were dropped, and Mr. Maatouk pleaded guilty to a superseding information charging him with a general conspiracy^[8] to provide material support to terrorists.^[9]

The suggestion that Mr. Maatouk was convicted in part on evidence taken from phone conversations with his brother raises questions of whether those conversations were obtained with a warrant. There seems to be no bar in the plea agreement concerning an appeal as to how evidence was obtained.

Under the plea agreement, the government has agreed to not charge Mr. Maatouk with committing any other federal criminal offenses known to the US Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida at the time of the execution of the agreement which is related to the conduct giving rise to the plea agreement.^[10] In turn, Mr. Maatouk agreed to waive his right to appeal whatever sentence chose to give him.^[11]

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[1] Former Orange Park Man Gets 5 Year Sentence for Helping Hezbollah, AP (via Bradenton Herald), May 26, 2006.
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
[4] Id.
[5] Id.
[6] Id.
[7] See U.S. v. Maatouk, No. 3:04-cr-00323 (M.D. Fla. 2006).
[8] See 18 U.S.C. § 371.
[9] See 18 U.S.C. § 2339A.
[10] See Maatouk, supra note 7, Plea Agreement, at 3.
[11] Id. at 9.