A former police officer with the Washington, D.C., Metro Transit Police Department was convicted Monday of attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State.
Nicholas Young, 38, worked for the Metro Transit Police Department for 12 years. The Fairfax, Va., man was arrested in August 2016, and is the first U.S. law enforcement officer to have been charged with a terror-related crime, the FBI said at the time.
According to court documents, Young had been monitored by the FBI since September 2010 and traveled to Libya twice in 2011. There, he joined rebel forces who were trying to oust Moammar Gadhafi.
Federal prosecutors said Young tried to provide material support to the Islamic State in late July 2016 when he purchased and sent gift card codes he thought would allow recruiters with the terrorist organization to communicate with potential recruits without being detected.
Young also communicated with an FBI informant, who he believed had joined the Islamic State in 2014 and was an associate of his.
In November 2014, Young sent a text message to the agent “in order to make it falsely appear to the FBI” that the agent went on vacation to Turkey. But Young believed the agent went to Turkey and then on to Syria to join the Islamic State.
The FBI had previously informed Young in an interview the bureau was investigating the associate and his attempts to join the terrorist group.
Young will be sentenced Feb. 23 and faces a maximum of 60 years in prison.
“Nicholas Young swore an oath to protect and defend, and instead violated the public’s trust by attempting to support ISIS,” Dana Boente, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and assistant attorney general for the National Security Division of the Justice Department said in a statement.
