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Kevin Iman McCormick, 27, was charged with a felony for attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) in October 2019, according to the office of United States Attorney of Connecticut John H. Grisham.
Based on a medical assessment given by Dr. Hassan M. Minhas, on Wednesday, Oct. 14, U.S. District Court, Connecticut, Judge Kari A. Dooley said McCormick is not mentally prepared to be tried. Dooley placed McCormick in the custody of the state attorney's office, ordering that he receive care to improve his mental fitness for trial, according to the New Haven Register.
If convicted, McCormick could serve a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
McCormick has been in custody since his arrest nearly a year ago, where he has had a "difficult time" with other inmates, according to defense attorney Allison Near. At the same hearing, on Wednesday, Oct. 14, Judge Kari A. Dooley placed
The FBI was alerted to McCormick by Islamic centers in two states in August of 2019, according to reporting by Daily Beast. In October, he made several statements to others about his desire to travel to Syria and fight alongside ISIS, according to court documents.
"I gotta fight bro, because those people, Abu Masa and ISIL, they fought for me bro, I know it, I can feel it, in my heart. So it’s my time to fight," McCormick allegedly stated in one conversation.
After Homeland Security prevented him from boarding a flight to Jamaica on Oct. 12, 2019, McCormick allegedly told a witness that he had intended to travel from Jamaica to Syria to join ISIS and planned to acquire weapons.
When asked in this conversation to elaborate on where he would like to travel, McCormick allegedly said, “I don’t know, I don’t know, bro – it’s gotta be like Syria. Where ISIL is at …. whichever place is easiest, whichever place I can get there the fastest, the quickest, the easiest, and where I can have a rifle and I can have some people, bro"
About a week after his first attempt to board a plane, he tried again. On Oct. 19, 2019, McCormick allegedly posted a video on his Facebook page in which he pledged his allegiance to the terrorist organization. Later that day, he purchased an airline ticket from Toronto, Canada, to Amman, Jordan, and was arrested two days later before boarding a flight to Canada from a private Connecticut airport on Oct. 21, 2019.
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