He was going to attack a restaurant with a machete in the name of ISIS
An ex-convict plead guilty Thursday in federal court to planning to attack on a Rochester, New York, restaurant with a machete on New Year’s Eve in an attempted terrorist plot.
Emanuel Lutchman, 26, was convicted of a conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorism organization, according to the Associated Press, after hatching the plan in the name of the Islamic State.
Authorities say Lutchman initiated contact with ISIS members online, including the now deceased Abu Issa Al-Amriki in Syria, who told him to plan an attack on New Year’s Eve to kill non-believers, or “kuffar.”
Lutchman, prosecutors said, made a video on Dec. 30, 2015 pledging allegiance to ISIS, saying “the blood that you spill of the Muslim overseas we gonna spill the blood of the Kuffar.” He was arrested by agents immediately afterwards, according to the AP.
The charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison. Lutchman will be sentenced Nov. 15 in U.S. District Court in Rochester.
Lutchman’s family said that he suffers from a long history of mental illness and was unable to find employment after serving a prison sentence for robbing a man when he was 16, the AP reports.