Anti-Islam Filmmaker Gets Year in Prison

Mark Basseley Youssef violated probation for bank fraud
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Nov 7, 2012 4:57 PM CST
Anti-Islam Filmmaker Gets Year in Prison
This Sept. 27 courtroom sketch shows shows Mark Basseley Youssef talking with his attorney Steven Seiden.   (AP Photo/Mona Shafer Edwards, file)

A California man who was behind an anti-Muslim film that led to violence in the Middle East has been sentenced to one year in prison for violating probation stemming from a 2010 bank fraud conviction. Mark Basseley Youssef, 55, was sentenced today by US District Court Judge Christina Snyder after he admitted four of eight alleged violations, including obtaining a fraudulent California driver's license.

Youssef served most of a 21-month prison term in the bank fraud case. Federal authorities wanted Youssef to serve two years for the violations. None of the violations had to do with the content of Innocence of Muslims, a film that depicts Mohammad as a religious fraud, a pedophile, and a womanizer. (More Innocence of Muslims stories.)

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