An Idaho man gets 18 years in prison for an Islamic State support plot
[November 11, 2026]
By REBECCA BOONE
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — An Idaho man has been sentenced to 18 years in
federal prison for attempting to provide material support to the Islamic
State group.
Alexander Scott Mercurio, 21, pleaded guilty to the federal terrorism
charge last month. U.S. District Judge David C. Nye sentenced him
Tuesday and said Mercurio would be placed on lifetime supervised release
after completing his prison term.
Prosecutors said Mercurio had pledged his allegiance to IS and planned
to attack churches in Coeur d'Alene on the group's behalf, using
explosives, knives, firearms and other weapons. He was arrested by the
FBI on April 6, 2024, one day before the planned attack, according to
prosecutors.
Idaho U.S. Attorney John Shirts said the sentence “sends the clear
message that where individuals intend to pursue acts of terrorism
against the United States — whether in Coeur d'Alene, or any other
community — they will be brought to justice.”
Mercurio's defense attorneys, Carter Powers Beggs and J. Stephen Roberts
Jr. with the Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington and Idaho, declined
to comment on the case. But in a court document, they described Mercurio
as a depressed teen when he was arrested who was raised in a
dysfunctional family that exposed him to white supremacist ideology at a
young age.
Mercurio was dealing with family trauma and isolated from the outside
world when he was befriended online by a government informant, his
attorneys wrote. He had already bounced between multiple political
ideologies by that time, ultimately embracing radical Islam when the
COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, they said.
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The criminal complaint against Alexander Scott Mercurio is
photographed on April 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)
“Starting when he was just seventeen years old, Mr. Mercurio spent
his days holed away in his basement bedroom, talking with his best
friend about increasingly radical terrorist ideologies,” his
attorneys wrote. “Together they brainstormed a plan that was as
horrific as it was unlikely to succeed: a suicidal attack on local
churches using his father's firearms and an untested improvised
explosive/flamethrower.”
Mercurio has since renounced his extremist views, and has been
assessed as a low risk of future danger, his attorneys said. They
asked the judge to impose a sentence of nine years in prison.
According to court records, Mercurio created an online repository
for pro-IS content and originally wanted to travel overseas to
support the organization but lacked the money and resources to make
the trip. Shortly before his arrest, he gave the informant an audio
recording pledging his support for IS, along with a photo of himself
holding a knife in front of an IS flag.
The Islamic State group, which the U.S. government designates a
terror group, took control of a large swath of territory in Syria
and Iraq in 2014 and declared the territory to be a caliphate. The
group had been largely defeated in both countries by 2018, but still
has sleeper cells that carry out deadly attacks in both countries,
and IS affiliates also operate in West Africa.
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