'Innocence of Muslims' creator goes to jail
/The creator of the anti-Muslim movie that spurred violent protests across the Middle East was sentenced to a year in prison on Wednesday for unrelated prison violations after his attorneys agreed to a plea bargain.
Mark Bassely Youssef, a 55-year-old US citizen originally from Egypt, admitted to half of the eight alleged violations that landed him in police custody in late September, reports the Associated Press. After he was believed to be involved in the “Innocence of Muslims” film that prompted outrage earlier this year, Youssef went into hiding. He was eventually detained, however, and forced to face accusations that he had broken the conditions of a previous sentence dished out for allegedly using more than a dozen aliases to open multiple banks accounts to mastermind a check fraud scheme. On Wednesday, he admitted to four of those charges, including obtaining a fraudulent California driver's license, and was sentenced to serve one year behind bars.
Outside of a Los Angeles, California courtroom, defense attorney Steven Seiden delivered an ominous statement from his client, then said he could not elaborate further.
"The one thing he wanted me to tell all of you is President Obama may have gotten Osama bin Laden, but he didn't kill the ideology," Seiden told reporters.
When asked for a meaning behind the message, Seiden responded, “I didn’t ask him, and I don’t know.”
