Man from Virginia accused of supporting the Islamic State through bomb-making video

A man who moved from Florida to Virginia earlier this year was indicted Thursday on a charge of attempting to support the Islamic State terrorist group by posting a video online for making explosives.

Romeo Xavier Langhorne, 30, was formally charged in Jacksonville federal court. He faces up to 20 years in prison, according to federal court records. Langhorne was arrested last month in Roanoke, Virginia, where he moved in April.

Langhorne has been a follower of ISIS since 2014 and has recently publicly reaffirmed his support for ISIS, according to a criminal complaint. Investigators said Langhorne was living in St. Augustine, Florida, in February when he began communicating with an undercover FBI employee who was posing as an ISIS member.

Langhorne told the FBI employee about his plans to create and disseminate an instructional video on making a deadly explosive, triacetone triperoxide, the complaint said. Langhorne told the undercover employee that the purpose in making and distributing the video was to arm ISIS supporters and others with knowledge of how to make the explosive and use it for terrorism-related purposes, authorities said.

The FBI produced a video using Langhorne’s instructions, though it actually featured an inert chemical formula that would not produce an explosion. Langhorne received the video last month and uploaded it to a video-sharing website, the criminal complaint said. He was arrested four days later.

Source: New York Times