Hamid Hayat to be sentenced next week

Lodi man convicted last year on terror charges faces up to 39 years in prison

A pre-sentence report has recommended that Hamid Hayat, the Lodi man convicted of terrorism last year, spend 35 years in prison.

His defense calls that recommendation "draconian and unfair."

Hamid Hayat

Hayat's attorneys wrote in a six-page response, filed last Friday, that federal sentencing guidelines could instead call for a nine-year sentence. Government attorneys have not yet filed a response.

He is scheduled to be sentenced next Friday and could receive up to 39 years in prison.

Hayat, 24, has been jailed for more than two years, since his June 5, 2005, arrest.

A federal jury last year convicted him of providing material support to terrorists and lying to the FBI.

Hayat's attorneys have argued that he was unfairly subjected to hours of interviews with FBI agents and only told them what they wanted to hear.

In videotaped interviews played for the jury, he denied attending terror training camps in Pakistan, then later said that he saw camps. An FBI agent testified that he never found physical proof that such a camp existed.

Jurors deliberated for nine days before convicting Hayat.

Then a juror came forward, saying the foreman was biased throughout the case and that she was pressured to change her vote to 'guilty.'

U.S. District Court Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr., who will sentence Hayat Aug. 10, denied requests for a new trial.

Hayat was one of five men detained after the FBI spend years conducting an undercover investigation in Lodi.

The FBI originally focused on religious leaders in Lodi's Pakistani community, paying an informant to infiltrate the Lodi Muslim Mosque. When he couldn't get close to the leaders, he testified at trial, he befriended Hayat and even encouraged him to "train" in camps.

In June 2005, FBI agents swarmed through Lodi, detaining two religious leaders on immigration violations, along with the 19-year-old son of one of the men. All three ultimately agreed to be deported back to Pakistan, and they were never charged criminally.

Hayat and his father, Umer Hayat, were interviewed for hours and then arrested.

The elder Hayat was charged with two counts of lying to the FBI and a jury ultimately could not reach a verdict.

After accepting a plea deal on an unrelated charge, he has since gone back to work and still lives in Lodi.

Contact reporter Layla Bohm at layla@lodinews.com.