A former police officer from the Washington, D.C., Metro Transit Police Department was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison for trying to provide material support to ISIS and obstructing justice, according to a Justice Department press release.
Nicholas Young, a 12-year veteran of the department who lives in Fairfax, Va., was convicted in mid-December and had faced up to 60 years in prison. Young will also serve 15 years of supervised release following his prison sentence.
Young, 38, purchased and sent gift card codes to ISIS members in 2016 that he thought could help them recruit new fighters. He was arrested in August 2016 and is the first U.S. law enforcement officer to be charged with a terror-related crime.
Young also tried to obstruct and impede an earlier FBI investigation on multiple occasions from 2014 to 2015. Young covered for his associate, who was actually an undercover FBI agent, when federal agents asked why his friend had traveled overseas.
Young said his accomplice had gone on vacation to Turkey even though he thought he had gone to Turkey with the intention of continuing to Syria, where he could join and fight alongside ISIS.
The FBI first began monitoring Young in September 2010 and continued after he traveled twice to Libya in 2011. Young fought alongside rebel forces who tried to remove Moammar Gadhafi from office.
