As he got closer to joining one of the world’s most notorious terror groups, Nicholas Young was getting paranoid that the FBI was watching him.
It turns out the FBI was, in fact, watching him. They had been for years.
Young, a 36-year-old officer with the District of Columbia region’s Metro Transit Police Department, was arrested on Wednesday morning at department headquarters after a years-long investigation into his ties to ISIS, the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia confirmed to The Huffington Post.
There was never any “direct threat” to the transit system and most of Young’s alleged interests were overseas, a spokesman said.
Authorities say they first made contact with Young in 2010 after he complained about the arrest of his buddy Zachary Chesser, who was later famously convicted on terrorism charges for threatening the creators of “South Park.”
Over the next six years, Young met with several undercover FBI officers and informants in various attempts to send money overseas, communicate with known terrorists and plan an attack on the FBI, according to his arrest affidavit (featured below). Alongside undercover officers, he also met with Amine El Khalifi, who in 2012 was sentenced to 30 years in prison over a plot to carry out a suicide bomb attack in Washington, D.C.
All the while, Young suspected ― and rightly so ― that he was being watched. He allegedly told undercover officers that he used burner phones to avoid FBI detection, and worried that officers would show up to his house and find his stockpile of weapons, according to the affidavit. If they did, he said he would have attempted to kill them.
If he were ever betrayed, he reportedly said, “That person’s head would be in a cinder block at the bottom of Lake Braddock.”
On another occasion, he discussed an attack on an FBI establishment, and in 2011 allegedly said he wanted to kidnap and torture an FBI agent who interviewed him about Chesser.
Last month, Young allegedly took action. He told an informant that he wanted to purchase mobile phone gift cards that would allow the self-described Islamic State to communicate and recruit via text. Authorities say that on July 28, Young sent 22 gift card codes ― worth about $250 ― to an undercover FBI agent, and said:
“Respond to verify receipt . . . may not answer depending on when as this device will be destroyed after all are sent to prevent the data being possibly seen on this end in the case of something unfortunate.”
The move was apparently the last straw for the FBI, and agents arrested him on several charges of attempting to give support to a foreign terrorist organization. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison if convicted.
Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld told WTOP that he was horrified by the allegations.
“Metro Transit Police alerted the FBI about this individual and then worked with our federal partners throughout the investigation up to and including today’s arrest,” he said Wednesday. “Obviously, the allegations in this case are profoundly disturbing. They’re disturbing to me, and they’re disturbing to everyone who wears the uniform.”