Federal jury convicts former police officer of attempting to aid ISIS

A former police officer from Fairfax, Virginia, accused of providing ISIS members with gift card codes that could be used to communicate with potential recruits was convicted on Monday of attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization.

Nicholas Young, 38, was working as a police officer with the Metro Transit Police Department when he allegedly attempted to send gift card codes to ISIS recruiters in July 2016. Young was also accused of attempting to obstruct or impede an official proceeding for misleading FBI investigators in 2014 and 2015 about a colleague who Young believed had joined ISIS.

“Nicholas Young swore an oath to protect and defend, and instead violated the public’s trust by attempting to support ISIS,” said Dana Boente, and assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s National Security Division and U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. “I want to thank the FBI’s Washington Field Office, the Metro Transit Police, and the trial team for their tireless work and dedication to this case.”

In late 2014, Young believed that an FBI informant posing as his colleague had traveled to Turkey and then to Syria to join ISIS. Young allegedly sent a text message to mislead investigators into thinking that the informant had traveled to Turkey for a vacation.

Then, in 2015, Young allegedly again attempted to deceive FBI investigators about where his colleague had traveled, and why he traveled there, during interviews.

Young faces up to 60 years in prison when he’s sentenced on Feb. 23.