A former Boy Scout arrested in New Jersey as he boarded a ship bound for Yemen to join ISIS in the war-torn country was sentenced Thursday to 11 years in federal prison.
James Bradley, 21, and his attorneys had asked in court documents for a reduced sentence, claiming he had deradicalized through work he completed with a non-profit group following his arrest in 2021.
But Judge Paul Engelmayer in Manhattan federal court on Thursday said the request was “completely impossible.”
“I can’t predict the future, none of us can,” Engelmayer said imposing the 11-year sentence, adding that non-profit workers who “de-radicalized” Bradley “don’t have crystal balls.”
“The gravity of the offense is hard to get around,” he added.
Federal prosecutors had asked for a 15-year sentence, claiming Bradley was fully committed to joining the terrorist state when he was arrested and wanted to do so to kill innocent Americans.
“The defendant was determined to take up arms for ISIS one way or another,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kaylan Lasky told Engelmayer during Thursday’s hearing.
Bradley also addressed the court, apologizing to his family and loved ones and insisting that he had undergone full rehabilitation.
“I’m really ashamed and sorry for what I did,” she said. “I’m so different from the James Bradley he was arrested two years ago.”
Before imposing the sentence, Engelmayer credited Bradley’s family and nonprofit employees who have worked with him to loosen his grip on extremist ideology.
He also briefly read letters sent by Bradley’s friends and associates, including one from his former scoutmaster, which noted that the ISIS hopeful had achieved the highest rank of Eagle Scout during his time with the organization.
But the judge said he could not responsibly sentence Bradley to time served. Engelmayer said he opted for the 11-year sentence in part because he wasn’t convinced Bradley wouldn’t commit another crime or be drawn to radicalism in the future.
Bradley, of the Bronx, pleaded guilty in September to one charge of attempting to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization in a deal with prosecutors.
He fell for the terrorist group after converting to Islam near the end of his senior year of high school in 2018 and began attending services at a mosque on the Upper East Side.
At the mosque, the teenager met Mohammed Delowar Hossain, a radical who “cured and radicalized James,” Bradley’s lawyers wrote in a sentencing filing in the case.
He immersed himself in online propaganda about ISIS for the next two years, eventually marrying another Alabama radical, Arwa Muthana, despite having only known her for a few weeks.
The pair were arrested on March 31, 2021, on the gangway of a freighter in Newark that they had paid to the board so they could be transported to Yemen and then take up arms for the Islamic State. Muthana also pleaded guilty but has not yet been sentenced.
