An Ohio man who expressed support for the Islamic State terrorist group and said he wanted to attack a Toledo synagogue was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Monday.
Damon Joseph, 23, was arrested in 2018 after picking up what he believed were two semi-automatic rifles, the Justice Department said.
Joseph, whose name was Abdullah Ali Yusuf, pleaded guilty in May to charges of attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization and attempting to commit a hate crime.
He was sentenced to 20 years in prison and will be on supervised release for the rest of his life, the Justice Department said Monday.
Officials said they planned the attack for Saturday when there would be more people, and identified two synagogues as potential targets.
“Within months, Damon Joseph went from a self-radicalized virtual jihadist to planning a real attack on fellow Americans,” Eric Smith, a special agent in the FBI’s office, said in a statement. Cleveland. He described Joseph’s actions as “antithetical to a just and free society.”
Lawyers representing Joseph did not immediately return requests for comment Monday evening.
The FBI began investigating Joseph after publishing online images of weapons, an image distributed by the Islamic State group’s media arm and a ring that had the same words as the group’s flag, according to court documents.
Joseph later said he wanted to attack the synagogues while actually communicating with undercover FBI agents, according to officials.
He said he wanted an AK-47 and an AR-15 and was arrested on December 7, 2018, after picking up a black bag with two rifles, the Justice Department said. The two weapons had been altered and could not have been fired, officials said.
The arrest came just over a month after a gunman attacked the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and killed 11 people.
The alleged gunman in this case has been charged with 63 offenses, including hate crimes, and faces the possibility of life imprisonment without parole or the death penalty if convicted.