A Virginia teenager will be sentenced Thursday for helping a high school classmate get to Syria in hopes of joining ISIS, according to law enforcement officials.
It’s believed to be the first time an American teenager has been convicted of assisting the ISIS terror group.
He’ll appear Thursday morning before a judge in a federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia.
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The 17-year-old, whose name has not yet been released, was arrested in March in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Woodbridge, Virginia, where he attended high school. He was arrested at home.
Law enforcement officials said at the time that he used the Internet to find ISIS contacts overseas and make travel arrangements for an 18-year-old classmate. A government bulletin issued in March took note of the case and said ISIS propaganda “likely influenced a Virginia based youth to create, produce, and disseminate violent extremist messaging via social media.” The case is unusual, because juveniles are seldom prosecuted in federal court. This article first appeared on NBCNews.com.
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