Professor Karen Greenberg, Director of the Center on National Security, is quoted in a Newsday article detailing the circumstances of a lighter than expected sentence delivered to Sinmyah Amera Ceasar for helping ISIS recruit prospects in the U.S.
Prosecutors wanted Sinmyah Amera Ceasar jailed for 30 to 50 years, but in a sign terror cases may not inspire the fear they used to, a Brooklyn federal judge on Wednesday tilted instead toward rehabilitation for the 24-year-old after an extraordinary three-day hearing this week featuring testimony from terror and threat experts along with psychologists who described horrific childhood abuse.
“You’re asking for life in prison … for a woman who has not even completely graduated from childhood,” U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein, the 97-year-old dean of the Brooklyn federal court, told prosecutors. “Is it necessary to destroy this defendant in order to assure an appreciable increase in security?”
Instead of the long sentence sought by the government, Weinstein imprisoned Ceasar for 48 months — she’s already served 29 months — followed by eight years on probation with monitoring of her internet and computer usage, mandated educational training and mental health care, and a ban on association with extremists.
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One terrorism expert said that the case reflected an incipient trend of leniency, particularly toward young people who have not engaged in violence, as the threat from ISIS appears to wane.“There’s been a kind of nod to not destroying people’s lives and considering age as a factor in leniency,” said Karen Greenberg, director of Fordham law school’s Center on National Security. “We’ve seen some movement but it’s been slow.”
