Military Families Push for $777M From ISIS-Funding Company

Justice may finally be coming for families who lost loved ones to ISIS attacks funded by an unlikely source: a cement company.

Nearly 1,000 military families are demanding the Justice Department release $777 million paid by Lafarge, the world's largest cement manufacturer, after the French company was convicted of providing material support to ISIS terrorists in Syria.

Chief Petty Officer Kenton Stacy knows the stakes personally. In 2017, the Navy bomb disposal specialist was clearing a booby-trapped hospital in Raqqa, Syria when explosives left by ISIS rendered him a quadriplegic. He now requires round-the-clock care alongside his oldest son, who has cerebral palsy.

"They were essentially funneling money to fund terrorists and ISIS and all these heinous crimes and evil acts," his wife Lindsey told Fox News.

Between 2013 and 2014, Lafarge paid over $6.5 million to ISIS through its Syrian subsidiary to keep a cement factory running in terrorist-controlled territory. The cement produced there helped ISIS build tunnels and bunkers that made them deadlier.

In April, a French court convicted Lafarge in a landmark ruling, sentencing its former CEO to six years in prison. Eight former employees were also found guilty. The company pleaded guilty to U.S. charges in 2022, paying $777 million into a Justice Department forfeiture fund meant to compensate victims.

But that money has sat untouched since October 2022.

Hailey Dayton was 15 when her Navy SEAL father became the first American killed by ISIS in Syria on Thanksgiving Day 2016. She remembers seeing six men in dress whites at her door and thinking her dad had come home to surprise the family.

"Instead I saw six guys with tears in their eyes," she said.

Why This Inspires

This case represents the first time a corporation has faced U.S. criminal charges for supporting terrorism. Attorney General Pam Bondi pledged in February to work with Congress to support the victims, acknowledging that the previous administration left their petitions unresolved.

Attorney Todd Toral, a Marine who represents about 25 families including the Stacys, says the French ruling matters because it holds not just a corporation accountable, but the executives who made the decisions. Real people are facing real consequences for funding terror.

These families aren't asking for sympathy. They're asking for what they were promised: compensation from a company that admitted to funding the terrorists who killed and maimed their loved ones.

After years of waiting, they're one step closer to justice.