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North Carolina Wannabe Terrorist Sentenced To Life In Prison

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Anders Hagstrom Justice Reporter
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A North Carolina man was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday, being found guilty of attempting to initiate terror attacks in North Carolina and Virginia and start an ISIS branch in the U.S., according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Justin Nojan Sullivan, 21, was preparing to engage in mass shootings on behalf of ISIS before his arrest by the FBI June 19, 2015. Sullivan admitted that he was inspired to slaughter innocent people by infamous and now-dead ISIS-recruiter Junaid Hussain, the DOJ statement said.

“Sullivan was actively planning the mass killing of innocent people with an attack designed to inflict maximum casualties and maximum pain in the name of ISIS, a sworn enemy of our nation,” U.S. Attorney Jill Westmoreland Rose said. “Sullivan’s allegiance to ISIS did not stop there. He also planned to film and send a video of his deadly attack to now-deceased Junaid Hussain, a prominent ISIS member based in Syria, and further expressed his wish to create a new branch of the so-called Islamic State in the United States.”

Court documents say Sullivan was radicalized as early as 2014, seeking out videos of ISIS attacks and beheadings on the internet.

Hussain later began corresponding with and attempting to recruit an undercover FBI employee to join him in a mass shooting. Sullivan told the undercover agent that he planned to buy an AR-15 rifle at a gun show, along with hollow-point ammunition. He then asked the agent to help him manufacture a homemade silencer for the weapon, which he would use to kill as many as 1,000 people at a concert near his home.

The silencer was delivered to Sullivan’s home June 19, 2015 and was subsequently opened by his mother. Sullivan offered to pay the undercover agent to kill his parents in order to prevent them from interfering with his terror plot, but he was arrested instead.

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