NEWARK (1010 WINS/AP) – A New Jersey man who tried to aid Hamas and threatened to “shoot everybody” at an unspecified pro-Israel demonstration was sentenced Monday to time served on a federal charge.
Jonathan Xie, 25, of Basking Ridge, was handed a sentence in Trenton federal court of five years, four months, which he has already served. He had faced up to 10 years in prison. He’s also subject to 20 years of supervised release, including six months home detention and location monitoring.
As part of a deal reached with federal prosecutors, he pleaded guilty in 2020 to concealing attempts to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
Xie sent $100 to a person he believed was affiliated with a faction of Hamas in December 2018, and a few days later, posted on his Instagram account that he was “pretty sure it was illegal but I don’t give a damn,” prosecutors said.
The U.S. has designated Hamas a foreign terrorist organization since 1997.
In April 2019, a person wearing a black ski mask later identified as Xie said in an Instagram video that he was against “Zionism” and the “neo-liberal establishment” and, in response to a question, said he would join Hamas “if I could find a way,” prosecutors said.
Later in the video, Xie allegedly displayed a handgun and said he was going to go to a pro-Israel march “and I’m going to shoot everybody.”
“Xie is an unfortunate example of an emerging and extremely dangerous threat the FBI Newark Joint Terrorism Task Force is seeing with much more frequency,” said Nelson Delgado, the acting FBI special agent in charge in Newark, in a press release announcing the sentencing.
“The average age of the international and domestic terrorism subjects we investigate is under 21 years old, and they're being radicalized in only a few months,” Delgado said. “Xie was a teenager when he decided to send money in support of a terrorism organization and then threaten to carry out a plan to kill pro-Israeli people. We need this case to serve as a warning to parents and guardians - pay attention to what your teenagers are doing online.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.