(Times of Northwest Indiana) A federal judge imprisoned an Indiana woman who helped fund a Middle East terrorist organization and put her husband on the front line of war-torn Syria.
U.S. District Court Judge Philip Simon imposed a 78-month sentence on Samantha “Sally” Elhassani, 35, of Elkhart.
That was less than the 10-year prison term Assistant U.S. Attorney Abizer Zanzi demanded, but more than the 5 years her Chicago defense attorney Thomas Durkin pleaded for.
Simon said he had to balance the harm Elhassani caused to [the] country’s interests as well as her own two children against the evidence her attorneys presented that she was controlled by her abusive husband and tortured as a spy by the very terrorists she had supported.
