‘Brainwashed’ man pledged allegiance to ISIS, Florida attorney says. He’s prison-bound
A man in Florida has been sentenced to six years in federal prison after he was accused of pledging his allegiance and support of ISIS four years ago, court documents show.
Moad Mohamed Benkabbou, a 23-year-old from Kissimmee, was sentenced on Jan. 17 following a plea agreement announced in May 2023, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida.
He pleaded guilty to two counts of making false statements to a federal agency, the attorney’s office said.
On Jan. 31, 2020, Benkabbou swore “bay’ah,” an oath pledging allegiance and support to ISIS, following months of messages with other ISIS supporters, according to a sentencing memo.
Prosecutors said Benkabbou educated himself “on the radical jihadi principles of ISIS” while spreading ISIS propaganda online, the memo said.
“Mr. Benkabbou was brainwashed into thinking this group was somewhere he could find support and friendship he was lacking,” Corey Cohen, an attorney representing Benkabbou, told McClatchy News in an email.
In a sentencing memo filed by his attorneys, Benkabbou said he had “felt like an outcast most of (his) life” because he was born deaf and was teased at school.
His attorneys said the COVID pandemic was particularly hard for him because everyone wore masks and he couldn’t read lips, increasing his isolation.
They said Benkabbou joined ISIS “to be part of something” and to find a group “that would appreciate him.”
Benkabbou was a student at the University of Central Florida at the time, his attorneys said, and he has since earned his associate’s degree while in custody.
“This is a young kid who is easily influenced and looking for a place to fit in,” they wrote in the sentencing memo.
Prosecutors said over two years Benkabbou “sent money overseas to support ISIS, communicated with an ISIS facilitator, meticulously crafted a plan to travel to Iraq and/or Syria to fight for ISIS” and “attempted to recruit and radicalize another individual” by encouraging them to go overseas, according to the sentencing memo.
As Benkabbou became more invested in the terrorist organization, prosecutors said his growing interest became an “all-consuming obsession.”
He was accused of watching and then sharing violent propaganda video that showed executions, beheadings, bombings and rape, prosecutors said, and he became obsessed with finding the perfect route to Iraq or Syria.
Benkabbou “painstakingly planned how he would mislead his family and others into believing he was traveling overseas for humanitarian purposes,” prosecutors said in the sentencing memo.
In 2020, Benkabbou started chatting with someone online he believed to be another ISIS supporter but was actually a source for the FBI, court documents said.
He told the informant he “could not do much in America because he could only kill a few people, but that Jordan was different because he could kill 20-30 people and then move on,” prosecutors said.
When confronted by agents in 2021 and 2022, Benkabbou lied to investigators and said he wasn’t involved and didn’t support ISIS, sentencing documents show.
Cohen said Benkabbou “removed himself from its ideologies and lied to federal officials because he was ashamed of his past and his beliefs held at one point in his life.”
Prosecutors said Benkabbou told the FBI informant that the “worst outcome for him” would be getting caught by law enforcement “before he could make hijrah and fulfill his obligation to kill for ISIS.”
Benkabbou was sentenced to six years in prison followed by three years of supervised release, court records show.
“We also believe that the judge took his time and evaluated not only the criminal conduct of my client, but also the nature and circumstances of who he was as a person aside from this criminal episode and delivered a fair and just sentence,” Cohen said.
Kissimmee is about 25 miles south of downtown Orlando.
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