A New Yorker-turned-ISIS recruit known by the nickname “Umm Nutela” has been sentenced to up to 70 years after an appeals court overturns her initial “stunningly low” 48-month prison sentence for inciting a terrorist organization. may be sentenced to imprisonment.
While out on supervised release after being released from confinement, Shinmya Caesar, 29, continued to chat with terrorist contacts and even ISIS supporters, according to federal prosecutors in Brooklyn. He is said to have demanded money to support him.
“No other terrorism defendant can match the defendant's history of recidivism and her tenacity and consistency in disobeying the court's legal authority,” federal officials wrote in a memo ahead of her upcoming resentencing. .
Caesar was infamously sentenced to four years in prison in 2019 by the late judge Jack Weinstein, who ordered the Brooklyn woman to receive educational and mental health support to “save her as a human being.” He argued that it was just necessary.
She had pleaded guilty to charges of providing material support to ISIS and obstruction of justice and was facing life in prison.
However, Caesar served a slap on the wrist and was sentenced in July 2020 to eight years of supervised release.
However, in August 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned Weinstein's sentence, calling it an “astonishingly low” sentence and ordered Caesar to be re-sentenced.
Meanwhile, federal prosecutors revealed that Caesar ignored a court order to appear in court on August 25, 2021 after the appeal was decided, and cut off his ankle monitoring bracelet in an attempt to flee to Russia because he did not want to return to prison. did. Said.
She was found hiding at an auto repair shop in New Mexico a few days later and arrested.
Federal authorities said Cesar began violating the conditions of his release “almost immediately” during his 13-month outing on supervised release. Just weeks after his release, he made two calls from a landline phone to a known Taliban supporter at a Queens hotel, according to federal authorities.
She also solicited money from ISIS supporters and repeatedly lied to her probation officer about her social media use, including “liking” posts by users whose profile pictures were the ISIS flag. It also included lies such as:
According to court filings, Caesar “intended to marry” ISIS wannabe Fareed Mumni, who is serving a 25-year sentence for plotting to attack an FBI agent, but the marriage ended after opposition from friends. It went bankrupt.
Brooklyn prosecutor Ian C. Richardson said of Caesar, who pled guilty in October 2022 to failing to appear in court, that “defendant has repeatedly violated court-ordered conditions and clearly “I wanted to do it, but I admitted in court that I had violated those conditions.”
The defendant, an admitted ISIS sympathizer, was scheduled to be resentenced Thursday in Brooklyn federal court, but Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto moved the date to February after his lawyers said they still needed to submit additional documents. Postponed.
Her attorney, Deirdre von Dornum, argued for a delay in sentencing, citing “concerns” about whether she violated her supervised release.
Prosecutors are seeking a sentence of 30 to 70 years in prison.
When she was first sentenced in 2019, they had asked for a sentence of 30 to 50 years in prison.
At the time, her lawyers said Caesar, who was charged in 2016 with providing material support to ISIS, was raped as a child and suffered from PTSD.
The origin of her unusual ISIS nickname remains unclear.
