By Ela Dutt
An Indian man convicted after an FBI sting operation has been sentenced to 15 years in prison by a U.S. federal judge in New York. Patrick Daniel Nayyar, 50, lived in Flushing, Queens on Franklin Avenue, and was the superintendent of a building. According to Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Nayyar was living in the U.S. illegally.
While no information is available on why the FBI staged the sting operation against Nayyar, prosecutors said at the time of the 2012 trial, that the Indian citizen was driven by greed and not extremist or radical ideology, New York Observer reported. Nevertheless, prosecutors produced evidence taped during the sting operation in which Nayyar agreed to supply all kinds of arms to Hezbollah while talking to an FBI informant he thought was a go-between to the terror group in Lebanon.
On Oct. 27, U.S. District Judge Robert W. Sweet sentenced Nayyar to 15 years “for crimes related to support he attempted to provide Hizballah.”
Following the sting operation, Nayyar was arrested at his residence in October 2009, and convicted in 2012 after a seven-day jury trial. According to court documents and evidence provided at trial, Nayyar and his co-conspirator Conrad Stanisclaus Mulholland, agreed to help Hizballah between July and September 2009. The two agreed to provide weapons, ammunition, and vehicles to Hizballah.
The FBI launched a sting operation using a confidential informant who represented himself as able to deliver the materials to the group in Lebanon. Nayyar and Mulholland agreed to sell guns, ammunition, vehicles, bulletproof vests, and night-vision goggles to the confidential informant, a release from the U.S. Attorney’s office said. During these meetings, Nayyar and Mulholland also provided the FBI informant with a handgun, a box of ammunition, and a pick-up truck, believing that these would be delivered to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
At his 2012 jury trial, prosecutors played taped conversations between Nayyar and the FBI informant named Ali. “Listen, we don’t have to keep repeating the name Hezbollah,” Ali says to Nayyar, according to the New York Daily News. Nayyar agrees to call them “the brothers.” In a July 27, 2009 conversation, Nayyar says he can supply Ali with sniper rifles, night vision goggles, Glock handguns and hollow-point bullets, the Daily News reported. “Those bullets are made for assassinations,” Nayyar is quoted saying. The FBI had made more than a dozen recordings of Nayyar’s conversations with Ali.
Nayyar was convicted on five counts. Count one was conspiring to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization; count two—attempting to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization; count three—conspiring to make or receive a contribution of funds, goods, or services to, and for the benefit of, Hizballah; count four—attempting to make a contribution of funds, goods, or services to, and for the benefit of, Hizballah; and count five—conspiring to traffic in firearms and ammunition.
Nayyar was facing 75 years in prison for those 5 counts. The 15-year prison term appears to be less than expected.
Mulholland, 47, Nayyar’s co-conspirator, is also not a U.S. citizen. He left the U.S. before charges were filed, and remains at large.
This story originally appeared on News India Times.
