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Ex-Coast Guard officer seeks review of terrorism sentence

Christopher Hasson of Silver Spring, Maryland, pleaded guilty in 2019 to firearms offenses. A judge applied a “terrorism enhancement” at his sentencing.
Credit: U.S. District Court, Maryland.
Coast Guard Lt. Christopher Hasson & weapons the FBI collected at his Maryland home.

RICHMOND, Va. — A former Coast Guard lieutenant accused by prosecutors of plotting to kill members of Congress to advance a white nationalist agenda is asking an appellate court to vacate his guilty plea.

Christopher Hasson of Silver Spring, Maryland, pleaded guilty in 2019 to firearms offenses. A judge applied a “terrorism enhancement” at his sentencing and gave him 13 years in prison.

Without the enhancement, he likely would have received no more than four years.

Hasson was never charged under a terrorism statute, and his lawyers say the terrorism enhancement was wrongly applied. 

Hasson’s lawyers made their case Friday afternoon to a three-judge panel in Richmond.

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