A California man was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Monday after he committed bank fraud to pay for a plane ticket to Syria in an attempt to join the Islamic State, according to federal prosecutors.
A U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California found Nader Elhuzayel, 25, guilty in June on charges of conspiring and attempting to provide material support and resources to the terrorist group. The jury also found him guilty on 26 counts of bank fraud, Reuters reported.
Elhuzayel was arrested in May when he tried to board a Turkish Airlines flight at Los Angeles International Airport that was departing for Turkey.
He planned to subsequently make the journey to Syria, but authorities detained him after finding a computer storage drive in his carry-on bag that contained photos of ISIS beheadings and a "hit list" of Defense Department employees that included names and addresses compiled by the militant group.
Elhuzayel had expressed support on Twitter weeks earlier for the gunmen who opened fire at the 2015 Prophet Mohammed caricature contest in Texas, according to prosecutors. He also appeared in a video pledging allegiance to ISIS and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
A co-defendant, Muhanad Badawi, was convicted in a joint trial with Elhuzayel for conspiring with him to support terrorism by purchasing the 25-year-old’s one-way plane ticket.
More than 70 people in the U.S. have been charged with attempting to travel abroad to join ISIS, though most of those case have resulted in guilty pleas, according to Reuters.