A 22-year-old Cincinnati-area man was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Monday for attempting to kill government employees at the U.S. Capitol in January 2015, according to the Justice Department.
Christopher Lee Cornell of Green Township, Ohio, had planned and attempted to carry out an attack at the State of the Union address “in the name” of the Islamic State, prosecutors said.
“The seriousness of this crime is apparent,” said U.S. Attorney Benjamin C. Glassman of the Southern District of Ohio. “Cornell plotted to commit violence as a symbolic attack on the United States as a whole. An attempt to murder another individual is horrific enough and justifies a significant sentence. But this was more than that. Cornell wanted to inflict pain on the spirit of the entire country, and terrorize its leadership. Today’s sentence appropriately holds him accountable for that.”
Cornell started plotting the attack from August 2014 through January 2015, when he was nabbed by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, the Justice Department said. He had purchased semiautomatic rifles and approximately 600 rounds of ammunition prior to his planned trip to Washington, D.C. Cornell admitted he researched weapons, how to make bombs and other potential targets to attack in the nation’s capital.
He pleaded guilty on Aug. 1. Senior U.S. District Judge Sandra Beckwith of the Southern District of Ohio also ordered Cornell to serve a lifetime term of supervised release.
