By Danny Fenster

A Lebanese man indicted by a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va. in November was charged on Tuesday with coordinating a multi-ton shipment of cocaine to the Los Zetas Mexican drug cartel in the United States, along with laundering hundreds of millions of dollars back to Colombian suppliers, reports local NBC affiliate KETK.

CNN reported that the man has ties to Hezbollah, the Lebanese organization the U.S. has labeled as a terrorist group.

The DEA and the US Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of Virginia announced the charges against Ayman Joumaa, a.k.a. “Junior.”  That and money laundering charges means Joumaa faces a possible life sentence.

KETK reports that for at least eight years Joumaa and others conspired to bring tens of thousands of kilograms of cocaine to the Los Zetas drug cartel in the US through Columbia and Central America.

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Mohamad Hammoud/mecklenburg co. sheriff’s photo

They say federal judges have plenty powers, and in fact, they can make a century or more disappear with the snap of a finger.

That’s just what happened Thursday when U.S. District Judge Graham Mullen in Charlotte, N.C. reduced the 155 year sentence of Hezbollah supporter Mohamad Hammoud to 30 years in prison, the Associated Press reported.

“The crime represented here was not as serious as other terrorism cases,” Mullen said, according to AP.

Hammoud, 37, a North Carolina businessman, was convicted in 2002 of financing suspected Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon with profits from a multimillion-dollar cigarette-smuggling operation he ran with his brother. Prosecutors at the time accused him of being the leader of a terrorist cell.

AP reported that Hammoud, from Lebanon, will likely spend 20 more years in prison and then be deported.

His attorneys wanted the sentence reduced to the 10 years served, saying the money Hammoud raised was for a wing of Hezbollah that helps provide clean water and good housing to communities.

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