Illinois men charged with conspiring to support ISIS
Authorities release the names of two suspects
Two Illinois men were arrested and charged Wednesday with conspiring to provide material support to ISIS, according to the Department of Justice.
Joseph D. Jones, also known as Yusuf Abdulhaqq, 35, and Edward Schimenti, also known as Abdul Wali, 35, were set to make initial appearances before the U.S. Magistrate Judge M. David Weisman in Chicago on Wednesday afternoon.
Authorities executed a search warrant at Jones’ residence in Zion, Ill., after the arrest. The case was investigated by Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Force and local law enforcement agencies.
According to the DOJ, Jones and Schimenti, both U.S. citizens, pledged their allegiance to ISIS and posted violent, extremist content on social media in support of the Islamic State terror group. Their allegiance dates from the fall of 2015, when Jones and Schiementi befriended three individuals whom they believed were fellow ISIS supporters; two of the individuals were undercover FBI employees, and the third was working in cooperation with law enforcement and was not an ISIS supporter.
Over the next several months, Jones and Schimenti met with the undercover FBI employees and cooperating source on numerous occasions, and allegedly discussed their “devotion and commitment to ISIS,” according to the complaint.
Jones and Schimenti shared photographs of themselves holding the ISIS flag at Illinois Beach State Park in North Zion, Ill., and according to a recorded conversation with the cooperating source, Schimenti commented that he would “like to see the ISIS flag on top of the White House,” the complaint states.
“According to the complaint, last month, the pair furnished several cellular phones to the cooperating source, believing they would be used to detonate explosive devices in ISIS attacks overseas,” the DOJ statement read. “On April 7, Jones and Schimenti drove the cooperating source to O’Hare International Airport in Chicago with the understanding that the source would be traveling to Syria to join and fight with ISIS.”
According to the complaint, Schimenti told the source to “drench that land with they, they blood,” after engaging in physical training exercises with the cooperating source at a gym in Zion. At that facility Schimenti commented the exercises would “make you good, you know, in the battlefield,” according to the complaint.
If convicted the men face as many as 20 years in prison.
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