A Maryland man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for terrorism financing and conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State.

The U.S. Department of Justice says Mohamed Elshinawy of the Edgewater suburb pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and received $8,700 to carry out a future attack in the United States.

The Pittsburgh-born Elshinawy was a 7-Eleven employee and newspaper deliveryman when he came on the FBI's radar.

Investigators say much of the money he received came from a United Kingdom-based electronics company run by Siful Sujan, an ISIS hacker who coordinated anti-surveillance technology and weapons development and was killed in December 2015 airstrikes.

Elshinawy was sentenced Friday by U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander. The 32-year-old faces 15 years of supervised release.</s>Mohamed Elshinawy, 32, of Edgewood, Maryland, was sentenced on Friday, March 30, 2018, to 20 years in prison, to be followed by 15 years of supervised release, for conspiracy to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), a designated foreign terrorist organization; providing and attempting to provide material support to ISIS; terrorism financing; and making false statements in connection with a terrorism matter.

Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, Acting U.S. Attorney Stephen M. Schenning of the District of Maryland and Special Agent in Charge Gordon Johnson of the FBI’s Baltimore Office announced the sentence issued by U.S. District Judge Ellen L. Hollander.

According to the plea agreement, Elshinawy conspired with others to knowingly provide material support and resources to ISIS, knowing that ISIS was a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. From February 2015 through about Dec. 11, 2015, in Maryland and elsewhere, Elshinawy conspired with others to provide material support and resources, including personnel, services (including means and methods of communication), and financial services, to ISIS. Elshinawy and his co-conspirators utilized various methods of secret communication in order to conceal their criminal association and activities from law enforcement.

As a part of the conspiracy, Elshinawy expressed his support for an Islamic caliphate and his belief in the legitimacy of ISIS. In addition, he expressed his hope that ISIS would be victorious and its enemies defeated, and discussed his readiness to travel to live in the Islamic State. In various other conversations, Elshinawy pledged his allegiance to ISIS, described himself as its soldier, committed to making violent jihad, and asked that others convey his message of loyalty to ISIS leadership.

Elshinawy also received payments from a foreign company totaling $8,700 to be used to fund a terrorist attack in the U.S.

In interviews with FBI agents in July 2015, in an effort to conceal and minimize his criminal involvement with ISIS, Elshinawy provided false information regarding the total amount of money he had received from ISIS operatives and claimed his intent was to defraud ISIS of funds. Throughout his interviews, Elshinawy mischaracterized the true nature and extent of his association with ISIS operatives and the support he had provided to ISIS.

Assistant Attorney General Demers and Acting U.S. Attorney Schenning commended the FBI for its work in the investigation, and thanked Assistant U.S. Attorneys Christine Manuelian and Kenneth Clark, who prosecuted the case, and the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section for its assistance with the prosecution.

This entry was posted on March 31, 2018 at 10:26 am and is filed under All News, County, Law Enforcement, More News, z 600X120 Top Ad Bottom, z 600X120 Top Ad Top. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.</s>WeWork is enrolling at the University of Maryland, in a manner of speaking. The popular co-working space provider has reached a deal to open its first location on a college campus at Maryland's flagship university in College Park. The new site, which will also be WeWork’s first in Maryland, will have more 300 desks as well as conference rooms and other communal areas. It is slated to open this fall next to the new Hotel at the University of Maryland. WeWork will be moving into a former mechanical...</s>The Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday about whether a legislative map for Maryland that led to a Republican lawmaker’s defeat at the polls was unconstitutional.

It’s the second time this term that the justices have weighed the constitutionality of partisan gerrymandering. In October, the justices heard arguments in a case challenging Wisconsin’s 2011 redistricting map.

The cases have raised speculation about whether the court for the first time might strike down a map as overly partisan.

In Wednesday’s arguments, the majority of the justices appeared to agree that Maryland officials had created an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander in redrawing its 6th Congressional District after the 2010 Census. The new lines cost Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R) his seat in the House.

Justice Elena Kagan said Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) and Rep. Steny Hoyer Steny Hamilton Hoyer17 Senate Dems broke their contracts with their voters Steyer brings his push to impeach Trump to town halls across the nation Congress may pass background check legislation in funding bill MORE (D) have been very upfront about the fact that they were trying to create another Democratic district.

“What the Maryland legislature did was to shuffle 360,000 people out and bring in 350,000 people. The result of that is that the district went from 47 percent Republican and 36 percent Democratic to exactly the opposite, 45 percent Democratic and 34 percent Republican,” she said.

“How much more evidence of partisan intent do we need?”

Republican voters in Maryland argue Democratic officials, in drawing the map, intentionally diluted their vote to retaliate against them for supporting Bartlett for two decades. They say this violated their First Amendment rights.

The earlier case in Wisconsin involved Democrats claiming that Republican officials had redrawn the state’s legislative maps to put them at a disadvantage.

Legal analysts say the court likely took the Maryland case in addition to the Wisconsin case to settle the issue in a neutral way without siding with one political party over another.

During the hour-long arguments, Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court’s regular swing vote, gave Maryland Solicitor General Michael Sullivan a hypothetical.

“Suppose the Maryland Constitution had a provision that required that partisan advantage for one party be the predominant consideration in any districting," he said.

Sullivan said it would be unconstitutional and the court could strike it down as viewpoint discrimination.

In order to strike down a district as a partisan gerrymander, the court has suggested it has to find a way to test if partisan politics have played an unconstitutionally excessive role.

But the justices appeared no closer to finding that workable standard they seek on Wednesday.

“Is there a practical remedy that won’t get judges involved in every or dozens and dozens and dozens of very important political decisions?” Justice Stephen Breyer asked, seemingly frustrated.

He even suggested filling the court with blackboards that could show all the possible tests for measuring partisan gerrymandering that have been proposed.

Attorney Michael Kimberly, representing the plaintiffs in Wednesday's case, said the test should be whether map-drawers have singled out voters for how they voted in the past and intentionally made it harder for them to elect their candidate in the future.

“According to this court's First Amendment retaliation and ballot access cases, government officials may not single out particular individuals for disfavored treatment on the basis of the views that they have expressed at the ballot box in prior elections,” he said.

But Justice Samuel Alito questioned how any legislature will be able to redistrict under that theory.

“Hasn't this court said time and again you can't take all consideration of partisan advantage out of districting?” he asked.

How the justices will resolve the two cases is very much in question. A joint decision is possible, but the justices on Wednesday questioned whether the Maryland case is even justiciable.

Chief Justice John Roberts asked Kimberly if the Republican voters in the district are really being harmed by the map, given there’s already been elections under the newly drawn district.

“Obviously, you argue you would be in this particular election, but if you've been willing to accept that harm in three different cycles, I don't know if we should get concerned about irreparable harm for one more,” Roberts said.</s>"Mohamed Elshinawy, 32, of Edgewood, Maryland, was sentenced today to 20 years in prison, to be followed by 15 years of supervised release, for conspiracy to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)[Daesh], a designated foreign terrorist organization," the release said on Friday.

Elshinaway also received $8,700 in funding from a foreign company to plan and launch a terrorist attack on US soil, the release said.

Earlier, another wannabe Daesh terrorist from New Jersey, Gregory Lepsky, pleaded guilty to actively sharing information on Facebook about the terrorist organisation. DoJ representatives said earlier that Lepsky faces a prison sentence of 16 to 19 years and a lifetime term of supervised release.</s>Co-working company WeWork plans to open its first location in the state at the University of Maryland, College Park.

The company currently has 200 locations in 21 countries, but the Maryland site will be its first on a college campus. This facility is the result of a partnership between WeWork, Chesapeake Realty Partners and the University of Maryland.

“The vibrancy of the UMD campus, access to an amazing talent pipeline, and being part of their innovative ecosystem makes College Park the optimal choice for WeWork’s first location in the State of Maryland,” Nicole Mozeliak, WeWork’s general manager for the Mid-Atlantic, said in a statement.

The WeWork site will provide more than 300 desks, conference rooms and communal areas in a re-purposed building. There will be a mix of dedicated desks and what the company calls “Hot desks” that allow users to work in the location of their choice.

WeWork will be located in the University of Maryland’s Discovery District. The district is part of the $2 billion Greater College Park initiative. The initiative is a public-private partnership intended to transform the Baltimore Avenue corridor and campus into a research hub bolstered by a live-work-and-play community.

The WeWorks facility will be near both The Hotel at the University of Maryland and the Diamondback Garage, which is home to the school’s entrepreneurship resources, Capital One’s Innovation Lab and cybersecurity firm BlueVoyant.</s>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Supreme Court justices on Wednesday appeared conflicted over what to do -- if anything -- to rein in politicians who draw state electoral maps with the aim of entrenching their party in power in a closely watched case from Maryland over the practice known as partisan gerrymandering.

The nine justices heard an hour of arguments in a challenge by Republican voters to a U.S. House of Representatives district in Maryland drawn by Democratic state legislators. The voters, who have the backing of Republican Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, are appealing a lower court ruling rejecting their challenge.

The justices appeared to struggle to find a way to resolve the issue. Several acknowledged problems with the way Democrats drew the Maryland district.

Based on questions they asked, the justices seemed no closer to answering the major question now before them in this case and in a similar one involving Wisconsin -- whether courts should be able to intervene to curb the manipulation of electoral district boundaries purely to favor one party over another.

On Oct. 3, the court, which has a 5-4 conservative majority, seemed similarly unsure on how to proceed when it heard arguments in a challenge by Democratic voters to Republican-drawn legislative districts statewide in Wisconsin, and has not yet issued a ruling.

Stephen Breyer, one of the four liberal justices, suggested that the court put off deciding the cases and instead hear another round of arguments in its next term, starting in October, along with another case from North Carolina.

Partisan gerrymandering, he said, "seems like a pretty clear violation of the Constitution in some form" but the problem is finding a "practical remedy" that would avoid forcing federal judges to decide a huge number of highly politicized cases.

In the Maryland case, there appeared little dispute on the bench that the congressional district's lines were indeed drawn with partisan intent.

Liberal Justice Elena Kagan agreed with Breyer about the problem of deciding how much partisan line-drawing is too much, but, she said: "This case is too much."

"How much more evidence of partisan intent could we need?" Kagan added.

Conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy, a potential key vote in the case, raised concerns about a ruling so soon before the 2018 mid-term election in November that would "upset settled expectation" but also indicated there was evidence of partisan intent.

The rulings in the Maryland and Wisconsin cases, due by the end of June, could alter the U.S. political landscape, either by imposing limits on partisan gerrymandering or by allowing it even in its most extreme forms.

The Supreme Court for decades has been willing to invalidate state electoral maps due to racial discrimination but never those created just for partisan advantage.

Both parties over the years have engaged in partisan gerrymandering. Democrats have said partisan gerrymandering by Republicans in such states as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania has helped President Donald Trump's party maintain control of the U.S. House of Representatives and various state legislatures.

Republican voters sued Maryland after the Democratic-led legislature in 2011 redrew the boundaries of the state's Sixth District in a way that removed Republican-leaning areas and added Democratic-leaning areas. Maryland's map led to Democrat John Delaney beating incumbent Republican Roscoe Bartlett to take the district in 2012.

At the time, Maryland also had a Democratic governor, Martin O'Malley. Current Governor Hogan's election victory in 2014 illustrated Republican strength statewide. But Republicans currently hold just one of Maryland's eight congressional seats because of the way the electoral boundaries are drawn.

The question before the Supreme Court is whether Maryland's electoral map violated the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment guarantee of free speech. The novel legal theory pursued by the challengers is that Republican voters were retaliated against by Democrats based on their political views.

In a 2004 ruling in another case, Kennedy, who sometimes sides with the liberal justices in major rulings, parted with his conservative colleagues to suggest that if partisan gerrymandering went too far courts might have to step in if a "workable standard" could be found.

Conservative Justice Samuel Alito on Wednesday told the attorney for the Republican plaintiffs he did not think their challenge under the First Amendment was a workable standard. "I don't see how any legislature would ever be able to redistrict," Alito said.

The Wisconsin challengers presented a different argument, that the Republican-drawn map violated the First Amendment right to freedom of expression and association and the 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law because of the extent to which it marginalized Democratic voters.

Gerrymandered electoral maps often concentrate voters who tend to favor the minority party into a small number of districts to dilute their statewide clout and distribute the rest of those voters in other districts in numbers too small to be a majority.

Legislative districts are redrawn nationwide every decade to reflect population changes after the national census. Redistricting in most states is done by the party in power, though some states in the interest of fairness assign the task to independent commissions.</s>Attorneys presented oral arguments Wednesday before the Supreme Court in a landmark case that challenges the constitutional limits of political redistricting in Maryland.

Benisek v. Lamone, the second gerrymandering case the high court has heard this term, focuses on whether redrawing district lines in favor of one party is a violation of the First Amendment.

Michael B. Kimberly, representing O. John Benisek, a resident of Washington County, argued the partisan gerrymandering that occurred in Maryland’s 6th District under then-Gov. Martin O’Malley in 2011 was a violation of the First Amendment due to the additional challenges created by shifting districts for voters.

“The evidence is unequivocal,” Kimberly told the justices. “It’s deliberately making it more difficult for particular citizens to achieve electoral success because their views are disapproved by those in power.”

In 2011, O’Malley created the Governor’s Redistricting Advisory Committee (GRAC) to redraw the congressional and state legislative districts in Maryland. A new map was created, passed both the Maryland House and Senate, and was signed by O’Malley.

Before the redistricting, Maryland Democrats controlled six of the state’s eight U.S. House districts. After the election following the new map, the Democrats controlled seven. Republicans argue the partisan redistricting caused irreparable damage to voters in the new district.

Kimberly went on to argue that “Governor O’Malley and others involved in the redistricting have candidly acknowledged their intent to dilute Republican votes in the 6th District to prevent Republican voters there from reelecting Congressman Roscoe Bartlett.”

“Given their evidence, (the appellants) certainly have enough to go to a jury on that question,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said.

“Government officials may not single out particular individuals for disfavored treatment on the basis of the views that they have expressed at the ballot box in prior elections,” Kimberly argued.

Some justices questioned whether voters had truly been harmed by the redistricting.

Chief Justice John Roberts called the length of time between the redistricting and the oral arguments into question.

“To let go the elections in 2012, 2014, and 2016, suggests that maybe 2018, you’re not going to be irreparably harmed in a broader sense,” he said. “If you’ve been willing to accept that harm in three different cycles, I don’t know if we should get concerned about irreparable harm for one more.”

Many justices questioned the intent of the redistricting, suggesting O’Malley’s reason for redistricting was unconstitutional.

“The effects were exactly what the intent would suggest,” Justice Elena Kagan said. “A long-standing Republican incumbent is unseated by a Democratic newcomer, who withstands a wave election, who prevails three straight times. I mean, it appears that the Maryland legislature got exactly what it intended, which was you took … a safe Republican district, and made it into not the safest of Democratic districts, but a pretty safe one. … I mean, how much more evidence of partisan intent could we need?”

Steven Marshall Sullivan, representing Linda H. Lamone, Maryland’s elections administrator, insisted otherwise: “(The 6th District) is not safe. It was judged competitive.”

Sullivan said that 20 percent of voters in the 6th District are registered as independents. The result is that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats make up a majority there, he said.

“The independent vote is critical because, in the first election, the Democrat won more of the independent vote than the Republican,” Sullivan said. “The redistricting lines couldn’t have caused that to happen. That happened because of the views of those voters and the strength of that candidate.”

“What effect does the fact that this map was subsequently approved by the people themselves have when we’re trying to determine intent?” Justice Neil Gorsuch asked.

Ginsburg compared the current case to an historic racial gerrymandering case from 1995, Miller v. Johnson, in which the court struck down districts solely created based on race, known as “max-black” districts.

“It seems to me that what we have here is ‘max-Democratic’ (per district)” she said. “If ‘max-black’ was no good, why should ‘max-Democratic” be okay?”

Sullivan responded that the historic ‘max-black’ districts were “drawn from a history of exclusion of African Americans from our political process, something that Republicans can hardly claim,” because their party currently controls both the federal and state governments.

Earlier this term, the Supreme Court heard the Gill v. Whitford case from Wisconsin regarding gerrymandering. In January, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked a redistricting order from a lower court in North Carolina.

Justice Stephen Breyer suggested waiting until next term, at which point those two cases and the Maryland case could be heard together.

“It seems like a pretty clear violation of the Constitution in some form to have deliberate, extreme gerrymandering,” Breyer said of the Maryland map. “But is there a practical remedy that won’t get judges involved in dozens and dozens and dozens of very important political decisions?”

Courts have previously treated challenges to political redistricting as a “nonjusticiable ‘political question,’ based on the lack of a determinate, judicially enforceable standard to judge political gerrymanders,” according to the Preview of the United States Supreme Court Cases.</s>Maryland Varsity has updated our list of the top in-state power forwards within the Class of 2019 now!

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE</s>WASHINGTON >> The Supreme Court is taking up its second big partisan redistricting case of the term amid signs the justices could place limits on drawing maps for political gain.

The justices are hearing arguments Wednesday in an appeal filed by Republicans in Maryland. They complain that Democrats who controlled the state government in 2011 drew a congressional district for the express purpose of ousting the Republican incumbent and replacing him with a Democrat.

In Wisconsin, Democrats are challenging legislative districts drawn by Republicans statewide. Those districts gave Republicans a huge majority in a state that otherwise is closely divided between the parties.

The Supreme Court has never struck down districts for being too partisan.

A decision in favor of opponents of partisan gerrymandering could cut into the political power of the dominant party in states in which one party controls the state government.

The court is expected to issue decisions in both cases by late June.

Maryland’s 6th Congressional District had been centered in rural, Republican-leaning northwestern Maryland and had elected a Republican to Congress for 20 years. Incumbent Rep. Roscoe Bartlett won re-election in 2010 by 28 percentage points.

But in the 2011 redistricting, Democrats altered the district to take in some Democratic suburbs of Washington, D.C. The new district had 62,000 fewer Republicans and 33,000 more Democrats. Bartlett lost the 2012 election by 21 percentage points.

Republican voters who sued over the changes said the state violated their First Amendment rights.

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh, a Democrat, is defending the district as competitive for both parties. Frosh said the district has elected a moderate Democrat, and in 2014, a friendlier year for Republican candidates, the victory margin of Democratic Rep. John Delaney dropped to less than 2 percentage points, though it rose again in 2016.

Republican Gov. Larry Hogan is siding with the voters who sued, saying partisan gerrymandering results “in real and concrete harms to our democratic republic.” Hogan has proposed a nonpartisan redistricting commission.

Over the past 16 months, courts struck down political districting plans drawn by Republicans in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Federal judges threw out a state legislative map in Wisconsin and a congressional plan in North Carolina. In Pennsylvania, the state Supreme Court invalidated the state’s congressional districts and replaced them with a court-drawn plan.

The Supreme Court has put the drawing of new maps on hold in North Carolina and Wisconsin, but refused to block the Pennsylvania court’s adoption of revised congressional districts for this year’s elections.
Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland sentences Maryland resident Mohamed Elshinawy to a 20-year term for financing ISIS.