A federal judge in Alexandria yesterday rejected the government's second attempt to obtain a long prison sentence for a local financier tied to a terrorist leader, sentencing the man instead to 13 months and one day in prison.
Soliman S. Biheiri, 52, is one of two people convicted as a result of a three-year federal investigation into local financing of terrorism. Prosecutors indicted him twice on charges tangentially related to terrorism. Both times, they asked U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III to impose sentences of at least five to 10 years. Each time, Ellis refused.
In Biheiri's second conviction, he was found guilty of lying to a federal agent during an interview at Dulles International Airport, when he was asked about his ties to Islamic Resistance Movement leader Mousa Abu Marzook. Biheiri denied having financial links to the terrorist leader, though documents showed he had been investing money on Marzook's behalf since the 1980s.
Prosecutors argued that Biheiri's lie obstructed their probe of Islamic groups in Northern Virginia being investigated for links to terror. They wanted a five-year term rather than a sentence of eight to 14 months for lying.
On the witness stand, though, Internal Revenue Service agent Mary Balberchak acknowledged that she and Customs agent David Kane already had information about Biheiri's links to Marzook when they interviewed Biheiri -- but that they had forgotten it. Because the government knew about the financial tie between Biheiri and Marzook, "it is not able to carry its burden that there was an actual obstruction of justice," Ellis said.
At the start of his trial in October, Biheiri pleaded guilty to one count of passport fraud. That count -- like the count of lying to a federal agent, on which a jury convicted him -- calls for jail time of eight to 14 months, according to federal sentencing guidelines.
But the passport charge carried a possible maximum sentence of 10 years. And after Wednesday's landmark Supreme Court ruling declaring that sentencing guidelines no longer were mandatory, Assistant U.S. Attorney David H. Laufman invited Ellis to ignore the guidelines, saying, "The shackles are off this court."
But Ellis declined, saying that the Supreme Court suggested that the sentencing guidelines still should be considered in devising sentences and that he thought they were appropriate in Biheiri's case.
Biheiri founded the investment firm BMI Inc. in 1986 and sought in its financing to adhere to Islamic principles, which forbid certain investments and make charging interest unlawful. He said yesterday that he saw an opportunity to help Muslims in the United States obtain money to buy houses and cars, and that Marzook first approached him in the late 1980s.
Prosecutors showed that Marzook brought in more than $1 million in investment capital for BMI. Investigators believed that Biheiri, an Egyptian native, was sent to the United States to launch a financial organization that could support terror groups.
In 1995, the government formally designated Marzook as a terrorist, meaning that all financial dealings with him were prohibited. But defense attorney David Schertler said prosecutors could not show that any money went from Biheiri back to Marzook after 1995. The statute of limitations had expired on dealings before that, so more serious terror-related charges were not an option for prosecutors.
Biheiri was first indicted and convicted in 2003 on immigration fraud charges. Although sentencing guidelines called for a term of no more than six months, prosecutors argued for a 10-year sentence because of Biheiri's financial links to Marzook and the bin Laden family.
Ellis said the government had not shown that the immigration fraud was linked to terrorism. "I never supported terrorism," Biheiri said yesterday. "If you want to see a real victim of terrorism, it is me."
Ellis vehemently rejected Biheiri's claim to be a victim. He said if Biheiri had been convicted of a terror-related charge, instead of lying to an agent, "he could confidently count on the maximum."
