ASHEVILLE, NC (FOX forty-six WJZY) – A Morganton, NC, man accused of assisting ISIS will spend the rest of his existence in jail. Justin Sullivan, 21, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Tuesday in a federal courtroom for making plans for a murderous assault with the help of ISIS. During his sentencing, Sullivan instructed the court that he is “not an awful character” and that “matters simply happened.” According to investigators, Sullivan, who was nevertheless a teenager at the time of his arrest, was planning to buy an attack rifle from a nearby gun display and slaughter at least 1,000 people during a concert in Charlotte. He pleaded guilty to attempting to commit an act of terrorism transcending country-wide boundaries on Nov. 29, 2016.
Court files state that starting no later than September 2014, Sullivan sought out and downloaded violent ISIS assaults on the Internet, which include beheadings, and accrued them on his PC. Court information suggests that he overtly expressed his support for ISIS in his home and destroyed religious objects that belonged to his dad and mom.
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As Sullivan formerly admitted, plea-related files filed with the court docket and at his plea hearing, starting no later than June 7, 2015, Sullivan conspired with Junaid Hussain, an ISIS member responsible for online recruitment and presenting guidelines and thoughts for terrorist plots in Western countries, to plot mass shooting attacks in North Carolina and Virginia. The Department of Justice says that Sullivan began speaking with a spy and advised the agent that he deliberated “minor assassinations to get geared up for the predominant attack.”
“Sullivan became actively planning the mass killing of harmless human beings with an assault designed to inflict the most casualties and the most ache in the name of ISIS, a sworn enemy of our state. Sullivan’s allegiance to ISIS no longer forestalled them there. He additionally planned to make a movie and ship a video of his lethal assault to now-deceased Junaid Hussain, a distinguished ISIS member based in Syria. Similarly, He expressed his desire to create a brand new department of the Islamic State in the United States. The life sentence imposed on Sullivan displays the seriousness of his crimes, protects the public from the danger he poses, and serves as a deterrent to others who wish to damage civilians within our borders. Our fight against terrorism continues, whether towards people who commit crimes on behalf of ISIS or any other foreign terrorist agency,” stated U.S. Attorney Rose.
Court files imply that Sullivan advised the spy via social media that it was better to stay within the U.S. To guide ISIS rather than to journey. Sullivan counseled that the agent achieved weapons and instructed the agent that he was planning po buy a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle at an upcoming gun display in Hickory, North Carolina. On or about June 20, 2015, Sullivan tried to buy hollow-point ammunition to be used with the weapon(s) he meant to buy.
According to courtroom data, Sullivan had researched on the Internet how to manufacture firearm silencers and asked the UCE to construct practical silencers that they may use to perform the planned attacks. Court statistics display that Sullivan advised the UCE he planned to carry out his assault in the next few days at a live performance, bar, or club, in which he believed as many as 1,000 people might be killed using the attack rifle and silencer.
Filed files indicate that over the course of Sullivan’s communications with Junaid Hussain, Hussain had asked Sullivan to make a video of his deliberate terrorist attack, to which Sullivan had agreed. On or approximately June 19, 2015, the silencer, which was built according to Sullivan’s commands, was introduced to him at his home in North Carolina, wherein Sullivan’s mother opened the bundle. Sullivan took the silencer from his mother and concealed it in a slow-moving area underneath his house. When Sullivan’s dad and mom questioned him about the silencer, Sullivan offered to compensate the UCE for killing them, believing that his parents could intervene with his plans to carry out an attack.
