A Virginia Islamic schoolteacher who cultivated sexual video conversations with a 15-12 months-vintage scholar will visit the prison for ten years. Seitu Sulayman Kokayi, 30, was convicted at trial in Alexandria federal court earlier this 12 months of sending pornographic pics to the girl and trying to persuade her to reply in type. “Your case is unusual,” Judge Leonie Brinkema advised Kokayi. “You had an honestly incorrect infatuation with this baby and misbehaved on it.” But, she stated, “it’s now not the typical pornography case.” She said federal pointers calling for a life sentence had been “way out of percentage” for the conduct. Kokayi lives in Alexandria, labored at the University of Maryland University College, and taught the Koran at a mosque in Washington. In court, he apologized to his wife, family, and pals. Singing in Arabic, he stated his fate becomes, in the long run, within the fingers of God.
“I have many shortcomings, and I’ve devoted many sins,” he said. “I blame nobody, however, myself.” Prosecutors requested a 25-year sentence, arguing that Kokayi used his has as a teacher to sway younger ladies towards extremism and sexual interest. He sent sixteen-year-old ladies Islamic State videos and other propaganda. He dispatched them to his mother and pals as well. Brinkema did not forget that cloth as part of her sentence; pronouncing the ten-year mandatory minimum already went beyond the punishment she would pick out if she were to do so. But she did impose twenty years of supervised launch, throughout which Kokayi is barred from any touch with terrorists or terrorist companies. It changed into Kokayi’s interest in the radical ideology that first attracted law enforcement’s eye, alongside his connection to a cleric who had recommended the murder of non-Muslims. One of the movies on jihad Kokayi shared with a teenage student got here from his stepfather, Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal, who faces terrorism expenses in New York.
“This is a case of a knowledgeable and savvy man preying on the vulnerabilities of a 15-yr-antique lady,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Dennis Fitzpatrick said. “He is espousing violence, he’s interested in it, he became deep in the weeds of this ideology, and he changed into promoting that with youngsters.” Attorneys for Kokayi argued his interactions with the female and his interest in extremism had been overblown. While he despatched her sexually expressed pics and requested her to meet him in an inn for intercourse, she in no way uncovered herself to him, and they instructed an FBI interviewer no actual life touch ever might have happened. Kokayi maintains he shared the propaganda to provoke dialogue and supplied his college students with opposing perspectives on Islam. He denied having any desire to enroll in the Islamic State.
“These are the very matters the founders sought to guard – nonsecular speech and political speech,” defense lawyer Mark Petrovich said. “He’s now not espousing terrorism; he is now not espousing violence.” Kokayi’s mom said in a letter to the court docket that once she married al-Faisal, “it became a misjudge of individual” and that they’d been religiously divorced for two years. Her son, she said, “has in no way privately spent any time with this man or woman.” In other letters, pals and their own family stated the episode turned into an aberration within the existence of a committed son and brother. His spouse wrote he became supportive through her pregnancy and motherhood, including her postpartum melancholy and painting journey. When she craved french fries, he began making them at domestic. He found signs of communication with her sister, who has Down syndrome. He carried coins, so he may want to provide money to homeless people continually, and he took public transportation for a month so a chum could use his car.
