Federal prosecutors this week said a North Carolina man communicated with the leader of the Islamic State’s “cyber team” while he plotted terror attacks on U.S. soil.
The conversations occurred through social media in the days leading up to the arrest last year of Justin Sullivan, a 20-year-old Morganton man at the center of the 9-count superseding indictment unsealed Tuesday in district court in Asheville.
Sullivan has been in custody ever since his arrested in June 2015 when authorities charged him with attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, among other counts. In working that investigation, authorities obtained evidence that later led to bringing murder charges against him for the Dec. 2014 murder of his neighbor, 74-year-old John Bailey Clark.
According to the latest filings, Sullivan was speaking with Islamic State hacker Junaid Hussain about plans to conduct a terrorist attack in the U.S. days before his arrest. The two communicated using an unnamed social media application through June 19 when Sullivan was arrested inside his home outside Charlotte, the indictment says.
“Sullivan informed Hussain that Sullivan soon planned to carry out the first operation of the Islamic State in North America and discussed making a video of such terrorist attacks for later use by ISIL,” prosecutors wrote, using an alternate name for the terrorist group.
Authorities say Sullivan, then only 19, planned to carry out a terror attack for Islamic State in the following few days by opening fire at a concert, bar or anywhere else where he could achieve maximum carnage.
In separate conversations with an undercover law enforcement official, Sullivan discussed plans for those attacks as well as alluded to his talks with Hussain — a British hacker who climbed Islamic State’s ranks as the terror group’s cyber specialist and was well known by authorities; prior to fleeing the U.K. for Syria, Hussain served six-months in prison for targeting former Prime Minister Tony Blair with his hacking group, “TeaMp0isoN.”
Sullivan told the undercover agent on June 9 that he had spoken with a member of Islamic State’s “cyber team” about making a video, and the following day said that “a hacker from IS might be able to help” plan an attack inside the country, prosecutors allege. Their conversations up until the day he was arrested at his parent’s home ten days later.
“On June 19, 2015, Sullivan exchanged communications with Junaid Hussain on a social media application in which they discussed making a video of a terrorist attack in the United States” to be used by Islamic State, the indictment says.
Police uncovered a .22 rifle while executing a search warrant upon Hussain’s arrest that same day. Investigators say a forensic exam proves the gun was use in his neighbor’s murder six months earlier.
Authorities also seized $689 in cash from Sullivan’s home they say he planned to use towards a new firearm for his Islamic State-inspired shooting spree. He had hoped to buy an AR-15 assault rifle, according to the indictment, and had already received homemade silencers to use in the attack that he commissioned from the undercover agent. He’s also been charged with plotting to have his parents killed after his mother found the silencer upon its arrival in the mail.
This week’s indictment charges Sullivan with attempting to provide material support to terrorists; receipt of a silencer in interstate commerce with intent to commit a felony; receipt and possession of an unregistered firearm; possession of a stolen firearm; use of interstate facilities in the attempted commission of a murder-for-hire; lying to investigators; conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries and attempting to commit an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries. The two counts related to domestic terrorism are the only new charges, and carry maximum punishment of life imprisonment upon possible conviction. Authorities in Burke County are prosecuting Sullivan separately for the murder of his neighbor.
Sullivan has pleaded not guilty to the newest charges and is currently expected to go to trial October 31, The News Herald in Morganton reported following his arraignment Thursday.
Hussain, the Islamic State hacker, was killed in a U.S. drone strike two months after Sullivan’s arrest. Its been reported that he may have been located in part because of the social media application he had used.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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