COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
United States v. Hassan-Saleh-Mohamad
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 18-1883
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
MOHAMAD HASSAN-SALEH-MOHAMAD,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Carmen Consuelo Cerezo, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Lynch, Thompson, and Kayatta,
Circuit Judges.
José B. Vélez Goveo and Vélez & Vélez Law Office on brief for
appellant.
Mariana E. Bauzá-Almonte, Assistant United States Attorney,
Chief, Appellate Division, Antonio L. Perez-Alonso, Assistant
United States Attorney, and Rosa Emilia Rodríguez-Vélez, United
States Attorney, on brief for appellee.
July 9, 2019
LYNCH, Circuit Judge. Mohamad Hassan-Saleh-Mohamad
("Hassan") pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography in
violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2252A(a)(5)(B) and (b)(2). He now
challenges the procedural and substantive reasonableness of his
within-guidelines sentence of eighty-seven months' imprisonment
and fifteen years' supervised release. Finding no abuse of
discretion, we affirm his sentence.
I.
We recount only the central facts in this section,
providing more detail as necessary in the analysis. As Hassan's
appeal follows a guilty plea, "we draw the relevant facts from the
plea agreement, the change-of-plea colloquy, the undisputed
portions of the presentence investigation report ('PSR'), and the
transcript of the disposition hearing." United States v. O'Brien,
870 F.3d 11, 14 (1st Cir. 2017).
A. Federal Investigation, Child Pornography Charge, and Plea
During a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
investigation into the distribution of child pornography on the
Ares peer-to-peer file-sharing network in November 2016, an FBI
agent identified a computer with a particular Internet Protocol
(IP) address as a potential source of child pornography. The agent
began investigating this computer and downloaded two video files
- 2 -
made available by the targeted computer, both of which contained
child pornography.1
An administrative subpoena on the cable company
connected to the IP address of that computer returned an address
in Puerto Rico. The FBI then executed a search, pursuant to a
warrant, of the residence at that address on March 31, 2017, and
interviewed all of the residents, including Hassan. In this
interview, Hassan stated that he had used his computer to search
the Ares peer-to-peer network for child pornography and had
downloaded about fifty child pornography videos and images in the
past year. A search of Hassan's hard drive found six images and
335 videos of minors engaged in sexual conduct, including some
featuring sadomasochistic acts and prepubescent minors.
On April 25, 2018, a criminal information was filed,
charging Hassan with one count of possession of child pornography,
in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2252A(a)(5)(B) and (b)(2). That same
day, Hassan pleaded guilty to this count pursuant to a plea
agreement. The plea agreement stated a Base Offense Level (BOL)
of eighteen and a number of sentencing adjustments, leading to a
Total Offense Level (TOL) of twenty-five. The parties did not
1 The two videos showed: 1) a partially nude female
approximately between the ages of ten and twelve performing oral
sex on a nude adult male; 2) a female approximately between the
ages of fourteen