SANTA ANA, California – An Orange County man was sentenced today to 188 months in federal prison for selling nearly four pounds of methamphetamine while he was on supervised release following a 2009 terrorism conviction.
Ahmed Binyamin Alasiri, 45, a.k.a. Kevin Lamar James, of Garden Grove, was sentenced by United States District Judge Cormac J. Carney. Judge Carney also sentenced Alasiri to 24 months in federal prison for violating the terms of his supervised release, a sentence that will run concurrently to Alasiri’s 188-month term.
Alasiri pleaded guilty in October 2021 to one count of distribution of methamphetamine.
About one year after being released from prison and while serving a term of federal supervised release, Alasiri sold methamphetamine to a buyer on three occasions.
“[Alasiri] was industrious and obtained legitimate full-time employment, yet he did not hesitate to traffic in drugs to earn income,” prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum. “He valued his personal short-term goals over respect for the law, the societal and individual damage caused by narcotics, and the risk of arrest for drug trafficking.”
On July 24, 2020, Alasiri sold the buyer 430 grams of pure methamphetamine in exchange for $3,700. On August 6, 2020, Alasiri exchanged 435 grams of pure methamphetamine to the buyer for $3,700. On August 20, 2020, Alasiri distributed 877 grams of pure methamphetamine to the buyer in exchange for $7,400.
The total weight of the methamphetamine was approximately 1.7 kilograms (3.8 pounds).
Alasiri admitted in his plea agreement that he – not the buyer – first raised the topic of selling drugs, and that he had “family members who were drug traffickers and that he himself sold drugs to customers.”
Alasiri is on supervised release after completing a 16-year federal prison sentence for conspiring to levy war against the United States through terrorism. Alasiri’s co-conspirators committed numerous armed robberies of gas stations to raise money for attacks Alasari planned on U.S. military operations and Israeli and Jewish facilities in Southern California. Alasiri completed his prison sentence in September 2019.
This case was investigated by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in Orange County, with assistance from the following JTTF agencies and other partners: the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the United States Probation Office, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the Garden Grove Police Department, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, the California Highway Patrol, the United States Department of Defense, and the Orange County Intelligence Assessment Center.
Assistant United States Attorney Dennise D. Willett of the Terrorism and Export Crimes Section prosecuted this case.
