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FORT WORTH — His brother was accused of gunning down his own teenage daughters as they sat inside his taxicab. But Yassein Said didn’t turn him in.
Instead, he helped Yaser Said hide from police for over a dozen years, authorities said. On Friday, a federal judge sentenced Yassein Said to 12 years in prison for helping his brother avoid capture.
A federal jury in Fort Worth convicted Yassein Said, 59, in February of conspiring with his nephew to hide his brother, the double murder suspect, as well as obstruction.
Sentencing guidelines recommended a 24- to 30-month sentence but the former Uber driver faced up to 30 years in federal prison. U.S. District Judge Reed C. O’Connor on Friday said his decision was based on the “extravagant lengths” the defendant went to to harbor his fugitive brother.
Yassein Said harbored his brother inside a Bedford apartment with the help of his nephew, Islam Said, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced in April to 10 years in federal prison, authorities
Yaser Said, 64, was captured in August and is in state custody on capital murder charges. Yaser Said is suspected of killing 18-year-old Amina Said and 17-year-old Sarah Said on New Year’s Day 2008. Authorities said he shot them in his taxi and left it outside an Irving hotel.
The double murder landed Yaser Said on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Tiffany Hope Eggers said Friday that Yassein Said showed “no regard” for his nieces who were “murdered in cold blood.” During the hearing, the prosecutor played a recording of a conversation in which the defendant allegedly used racial slurs against Black and Hispanic law enforcement officers.
Yassein Said, who has two young daughters and, like his brother, drove a cab, raged against the FBI when it was his time to speak. Angry and defensive, he complained about his treatment before and after his arrest by agents who he said kept him under constant surveillance.
He said agents had followed him for 15 years and watched him from cameras installed outside his home. Despite this harassment, he said, the FBI could not produce a single conversation he had with his brother during that time.
“They know everything about me,” he said, speaking rapidly, his finger stabbing the air.
Yassein called the FBI the “biggest lying agency in the United States” and accused agents of lying in court during the trial. He also said he helped the U.S. government following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. No details were provided.
Acting U.S. Attorney Prerak Shah has said that Yassein Said “provided cover for his brother” for years, wasting law enforcement resources and “delaying justice for his nieces.”
O’Connor wrote in a filing last week that Yassein Said’s punishment should be higher than what the sentencing guidelines recommended because of the length of time Yaser Said was able to stay hidden.
“Further, when responding to commentary that the Said family was harboring Yaser Said, defendant utilized ethnic slurs and ‘ranted’ about the ‘Jews’ keeping the case in the ‘public eye,’” O’Connor wrote.
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He called it “an obvious attempt to try to divert attention away from his actions.”
“The Guidelines also do not adequately take into account the extravagant lengths that defendant and his co-defendant, and perhaps others, went to to harbor and conceal Yaser Said, including implementing countermeasures, purchasing a home, and constructing an area within that home for Yaser Said to live,” O’Connor wrote.
Yassein Said’s actions, the judge added, wasted “incalculable” law enforcement resources, locally, nationally and even internationally.
During his statement, Yassein Said denied being bigoted, saying, “I don’t hate Jews, I work with Jews.”
William Cox III, his attorney, said his client should not be punished for his brother’s actions.
“Yassein was never seen with Yaser,” Cox said.
Cox said his client has kidney disease and other health problems and no criminal history. He said that Yassein is “frustrated” that his brother put him in “this situation” but that the government produced no evidence that he was with Yaser at any point during the past dozen years.
One of the defendant’s daughters asked O’Connor for a “fair punishment.”
“He shouldn’t have to pay for his brother’s sins,” she said.
Yaser Said was nearly captured in August 2017 when a maintenance worker dealing with a water leak in the Bedford apartment spotted him. The worker told the FBI he recognized Yaser as the fugitive, authorities said. An agent went to interview Islam, Yaser’s son, but Islam refused to cooperate and instead called his uncle to say, “We have a big problem,” prosecutors said.
When police arrived at the apartment it was empty, but officers noticed a large bush with broken branches below the patio, suggesting someone had jumped to the ground, court records show. They also found a pair of glasses near the bush. Prosecutors say Yaser Said later admitted having been in his son’s apartment in 2017.
The murder suspect told Irving police detectives that after someone came to the apartment, he “jumped from the balcony … and landed in the gravel below,” according to court records.
Islam Said, 32, later harbored his father inside a home in Justin that belonged to Yassein Said’s daughters, according to authorities. In August, FBI agents watched Islam Said and his uncle deliver grocery bags to the house and then followed them to a shopping center nearly 20 miles away in Southlake where they dumped trash from the home, prosecutors said.
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Yaser Said was arrested on Aug. 26 after authorities searched the Justin house and found him. What appeared to be a hidden room with a cot was found in the back of the home’s converted garage, a federal complaint says. He remains in the Dallas County Jail and could be sentenced to death if convicted of capital murder.
Yassein Said holds dual citizenship in the U.S. and Egypt and was detained before trial on the grounds that he was a flight risk, court records show. Prosecutors said Yassein had wished to return to Egypt permanently and claimed that his family had “a lot of highly-placed connections in Egypt.”
Prosecutors say Yaser Said’s DNA was found in his son’s apartment. The fugitive told detectives he never left the U.S., according to court documents.
At the time of the shooting, police noted that there had been domestic problems in the Said family. Only a week before, the sisters, their boyfriends and their mother had fled the state, renting an apartment in Oklahoma under an assumed name because of threats Yaser Said had made after learning about his daughters’ relationships, friends and relatives said.
But they returned to Lewisville on New Year’s Eve. Sarah Said called 911 the night of Jan. 1, 2008, and said she’d been shot. The Lewisville High School students both had been shot multiple times.
Police surrounded the family’s house the next day and entered after firing tear gas inside. But the house was empty.
Patricia Owens, the victims’ mother and Said’s former wife, later told authorities that her son and Yaser Said’s brothers had said things that indicated support for the killings, court documents said. And FBI agents said the family was uncooperative during the investigation.
After the sentencing hearing, Cox said he was “surprised” by the judge’s decision and added that his client would appeal.