Anti-Islam Filmmaker Gets One Year In Prison
Mark Basseley Youssef (also known as Nakoula Basseley Nakoula) has received a one year jail sentence for probation violations.
Youssef, who is best known for creating an anti-Muslim film that led to destructive protests in the Middle East and around the world, was sentenced by a California judge after he admitted to four violations from a 2010 conviction for fraud.
The BBC reports that none of the charges in the sentencing were related to the content of the controversial film called Innocence of Muslims.
Dozens of people were hurt and killed in the Middle East because of the controversial film. US District Judge Christina Snyder handed down the sentence on Wednesday to Nakoula, 55.
The filmmaker will have to spend 12 months in prison and four years of supervised release. Prosecutors were seeking a two-year sentence for Youssef.
CBS News notes that Youssef was arrested in late September. He initially went into hiding when deadly violence erupted across the Muslim world. Enraged Muslims have demanded a harsh punishment for the man who insulted their prophet, with a Pakistani cabinet member offering $100,000 for Nakoula Basseley Nakoula’s death.
Youssef was originally sentenced to 21 months in prison for using more than a dozen aliases and opening roughly 60 bank accounts for a check fraud scheme. He was released from prison early and banned from using computers or the internet for five years, unless he had approval from his probation officer.
While federal authorities believe that Youssef is responsible for creating the film, they are not sure who posted it online. Along with not using the internet or a computer, the man was also not supposed to use any name besides his legal one without the prior written approval of his probation officer.
