Ahmad Khalil Elshazly, 29, of West Haven, Connecticut, has been sentenced to 92 months in federal prison—more than seven and a half years—for attempting to provide support to ISIS, the Islamic State group designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, the US Department of Justice said Monday.
“There is no higher priority than the security of our nation and its citizens,” US Attorney for the District of Connecticut David X. Sullivan said. “My office and our law enforcement partners will continue to tenaciously work to investigate, apprehend and bring to justice anyone who threatens us.”
Elshazly has been held in custody since his arrest on Dec. 15, 2019. After completing his prison sentence, he will remain on supervised release for the rest of his life, according to the Justice Department.
The day before his arrest, Elshazly gave $500 to an undercover agent he believed was working with ISIS.
He believed the individual would help smuggle him from the United States to Turkey, where he expected to be connected with an ISIS member who could assist him in reaching Syria.
Federal officers arrested Elshazly in Stonington, Connecticut, before he could board a boat, the Justice Department said.
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Court documents state that during the 15 months leading up to his arrest, Elshazly pledged allegiance to ISIS and published “hundreds” of messages supporting the group on an instant-messaging platform.
He pleaded guilty on Nov. 30, 2022, to conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organization.
The Justice Department also said Elshazly committed numerous disciplinary violations while detained. In August 2025, officers searching his cell reportedly discovered a handwritten plan for a coordinated uprising at the detention facility. The document included diagrams of the housing unit, directions for breaching secured areas and tactics for confronting the correctional emergency response team.
Prosecutors had sought a 15-year sentence. Elshazly’s attorneys, however, argued that “treating Mr. Elshazly with compassion will show those who practice the Muslim faith that the United States is not the enemy of Islam that the radical Islamists claim the US to be.”
In a sentencing memorandum filed Sept. 1, his lawyers described Elshazly as having endured “a chaotic upbringing, an unequipped mother, educational failure, low self-esteem, extreme isolation, the stupidity of youth, never treated Autism Spectrum Disorder and bouts of depression.” They said those circumstances “made him vulnerable to the toxic Syrian and ISIS propaganda he found while unsupervised and alone in his bedroom.”
“A disappointment to himself and others in real life, he became increasingly mired in fantasy, making cinematic promises of bold military actions and boasting of skills and abilities, such as rocket manufacturing, that were entirely nonexistent,” his attorneys wrote. They said his autism and related challenges “could be successfully addressed in therapy.”