UNITED STATES V. MOHAMUD 27 contact with him but before Youssef suggested criminal activity. The second factor therefore weighs against Mohamud. The fourth and “most important” factor also weighs overwhelmingly in the government’s favor. The government initiated its contact with Mohamud in November 2009 with the Bill Smith emails, and the more aggressive Youssef and Hussein operation began in June 2010. Despite being provided numerous opportunities to deviate from or terminate the plan, Mohamud never displayed any reluctance in going through with a horrific attack that would have killed and maimed countless people, including young children. Indeed, he expressed great enthusiasm in seeing it through. He picked the target—the Pioneer Courthouse Square Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony—and planned where the van containing the explosives would be parked. He praised the terror attack in Mumbai, described the victims jumping from the Twin Towers on September 11th as “awesome,” and stated that he would be “happy” to see the bodies of “enemies of Allah” torn apart. The complete lack of reluctance on Mohamud’s part to participate in the bombing—indeed, his immediate zeal to see it through—separates this case from those in which courts have found defendants entrapped as a matter of law. For example, in Jacobson v. United States, 503 U.S. 540, 553 (1992), Jacobson was not predisposed in part because “[t]he evidence that [Jacobson] was ready and willing to commit the offense came only after the Government had devoted 2 ½ years to convincing him that he had or should have the right to engage in the very behavior proscribed by law.” In Sherman, a government informant approached the defendant, a recovering drug addict, and asked for narcotics, ostensibly

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