ISIS-loving Bx. nurse gets 20-yr. sentence
A Bronx nurse who planned to abandon his wife and young son to join ISIS in Syria was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in prison by a judge disturbed by his calculating, cold-blooded radicalization.
Adam Raishani, 32, was arrested at Kennedy Airport on June 21, 2017, before boarding a plane bound for Turkey. He’d left behind a patronizing, sexist will for his wife that revealed he’d unsuccessfully tried to persuade her to join him in jihad.
“Join — Over the years you have shown disgust and animosity towards this option. I did my best to reason with your intellect. Unfortunately, I was not successful. It makes me sad that you reject this with all the proofs and evidence that Allah had made apparent to you,” Raishani, a native of Yemen, wrote to his wife.
“Do Not Divulge this document and other documents that I have giv[en] to you to the authorities. Do not believe their plots. Do not divulge my absences but instead say I went to do volunteering outside the country with my medical skills and health background,” he later added.
Manhattan Federal Judge Ronnie Abrams imposed the maximum possible sentence for providing material support to ISIS. Raishani’s U.S. citizenship, college degree, job and family only highlighted he had fully embraced the Islamic State’s hateful ideology with his full wits about him, she said. “He was trying to cover his tracks. He had a baby at home. He left his wife. Why should I believe he’s going to be any different 15 or 20 years from now?” she asked. “He paid off his debts. He prepared to die.”
Raishani’s attorney Gerald McMahon had bizarrely argued that “one person’s terrorist organization is another person’s freedom-fighting army.” He asked the judge for leniency, noting the number of deaths attributable to ISIS did not compare to the 58,000 American soldiers killed in the Vietnam War.
“Are you really comparing an ISIS fighter to an American soldier?” Abrams asked.
In the nearly two years prior to his arrest, Raishani immersed himself in ISIS propaganda, taking care to hide his digital tracks. He even helped another Bronx-based ISIS supporter successfully travel to Syria to wage jihad in October 2015.
Authorities began investigating Raishani after he approached an Uber driver who attended his mosque. The Uber driver, who was a federal informant, noticed Raishani had an image of an ISIS flag on his phone and tipped off the feds.
“Raishani will spend the next 20 years of his life behind bars for his treachery,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said.
He showed no emotion as he apologized before sentencing. “My actions were very selfish and wrong. As a professional nurse, I always yearned to help others,” he said. “I’ve learned a lot and changed for the better. I no longer hold the same views I did when I came in [to jail].”