‘First Step Act’ Helps Illegal Alien Terrorist Financier Get Freed Early from Prison

An illegal alien, convicted in 2002 of providing material support to the Islamic terrorist group known as Hezbollah, secured early “compassionate release” from federal prison thanks to the “First Step Act” — approved in 2018 by the then-Republican-controlled Congress and signed into law by former President Donald Trump.

In June 2002, Mohamad Youssef Hammoud was convicted of providing material support to Hezbollah as well as a number of other criminal charges, such as money laundering, cigarette smuggling, racketeering, and immigration fraud. One of Hammoud’s brothers, Chawki Hammoud, was also convicted in the case.

According to prosecutors, Hammoud led an Islamic terrorist cell in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, from 1996 to 2000, where he and 22 of his associates purchased, transported, and sold contraband cigarettes in exchange for more than $8 million. A portion of the funds, prosecutors said, were given to Hezbollah in his native Lebanon.

Before his arrest in 2000, Hammoud had lived illegally in the U.S. since 1992 by operating under three fake marriages used precisely to keep him in the country without being eligible for deportation.

Hammoud’s conviction was the first in the nation under the Anti-Terrorism Act’s provision that makes it criminally punishable to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

Though he was initially sentenced in 2003 to 155 years in federal prison, Hammoud appealed the sentencing, which took the case all the way up to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), where his conviction was upheld, but sentencing was thrown out. Subsequently, Hammoud was re-sentenced to 30 years in prison.

After serving only 23 years of his sentence, as Fox News reports, Hammoud was released early from federal prison thanks to the First Step Act, which was signed into law by Trump in December 2018.

“We knew the bill’s leniency put dangerous criminals back on the street — but now we know it’s even putting terrorists back onto the battlefield,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) wrote on Twitter of Hammoud’s case. “Congress should repeal the First Step Act for the sake of public safety and justice.”

Hammoud had asked a federal judge last year to grant him early “compassionate release,” a tool under the First Step Act that allows convicts to petition a court for early prison release, whereas, before, only the Bureau of Prisons could make such a petition.

President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) pleaded with the court not to grant Hammoud’s early release from federal prison, stating that “he has not identified an extraordinary and compelling reason to grant him a reduction in his sentence.”

Following his release, Hammoud was deported to Lebanon, where he is now giving multiple interviews to Hezbollah-linked media outlets. In one such interview, Hammoud said, “I would be proud to send money to Hezbollah, and I could say I sent money to Hezbollah. But in 1999 … I did not send a penny to Lebanon.”

Hammoud is only the latest high-profile convict to secure early prison release thanks to the First Step Act. In March, as Breitbart News reported, a 42-year-old convict allegedly viciously stabbed, at random, a staffer for Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) in Washington, DC.

The day before the stabbing attack, the convict was released early from federal prison in Maryland — earning “good time credit” under the First Step Act.

Most notoriously, as Breitbart News chronicled in 2019, 41-year-old Joel Francisco, a notorious leader of the “Almighty Latin Kings” gang, was freed by the First Step Act and arrested months later for allegedly murdering 46-year-old Troy Pine.

Francisco was originally convicted in 2005 for dealing crack cocaine and powder cocaine. Days after his release by the First Step Act in February 2019, drug records reveal he immediately returned to using cocaine.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.