The DOJ replies - short clip below
“Ex. 19. Robotka further testified that the other equipment ordered by Codi Group, including the $12,000 Genesis scooters that would allow for transportation of 500 pounds of equipment underwater, caused him grave concern that the items would not be used for recreational purposes. And then on August 4, 2016, Commerce Special Agent Brent Wagner explained in detail to Voissem how rebreathers and underwater scooters could be used in a terrorist attack on a cruise ship by welding a bomb and they therefore could not be shipped to Libya. See Wagner Trial Testimony Excerpt, attached as Exhibit B.
The defendants tossed aside all the warnings they received about national security concerns and chose profit over country. Indeed, the undersigned is not aware of any case with so flagrant
disregard shown by defendants after receiving so many explicit notices that they would be violating the law by attempting such an export. The undersigned is also not aware of any other export violation case that involved so extensive a cover-up after a federal investigation had started and certainly no other export case in which a key federal witness was threatened with his life for cooperating. That alone should militate against a downward departure. The Sevilla case also noted that the defendant has no prior criminal history. Here Sotis previously committed a violent crime, a Hobbs Act robbery of a jewelry store at gunpoint for which he was sentenced to nearly three years in federal prison. Although the case occurred 30 years ago, when Sotis was 27 years old, and therefore does not count for criminal history points, it still should be a factor that cuts against a variance or departure for him. And Voissem’s prior law enforcement and military experience cuts against a departure for her – she understood more keenly than most the need to protect national security and she actively worked through her deception to the Zaghabs and intentional silence to Special Agent Wagner to enable this illegal export. Indeed, her law enforcement experience was what gave Special Agent Wagner false assurance that Add Helium would follow the law.
To assert that this was a one-off export ignores that, according to trial testimony, <<>>”
