USA v. Sabassi, Reda Mazen Rida
San Diego, CA

Hamas

[SDNY] Reda Mazen Rida Sabassi of San Diego, California, is charged with conspiring to provide material support to Hamas. Sabassi publicly supported Hamas online and raised money for Hamas using online donation platforms. For example, SABASSI created an hour-long propaganda video of the October 7 Hamas Massacres and then posted that video to at least two of his social media accounts, including a few months after the October 7 Hamas Massacres and again on the two-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks. Since at least in or about 2022, SABASSI has used his social media accounts, crowdfunding websites, and his putative charity called Ikram – The Arab Charity Foundation Inc. ("Ikram") to solicit donations from around the world, including from individuals in the United States and New York. In his online fundraising campaigns, SABASSI claimed to be raising funds to provide humanitarian aid to people in Gaza; however, SABASSI was actually raising funds for Hamas. SABASSI and a co-conspirator joked privately that they should name the fundraiser after Hamas's al-Qassam Brigades, before agreeing to use SABASSI's Ikram. SABASSI worked with the Hamas fundraising organization Gaza Now and other co-conspirators to operate these online fundraisers and to send funds to Hamas. Between in or about December 2023 and in or about February 2024, SABASSI raised a total of approximately $600,000 through online fundraising campaigns, from which SABASSI sent approximately $116,000 to a Hamas member and attempted to convert approximately $382,000 of the cash he raised into cryptocurrency to send to Hamas through Gaza Now.