A 21-year-old man will spend nearly two decades in prison for plotting an ISIS-inspired “martyrdom operation” targeting Christian churches.
U.S. District Judge David Nye sentenced Alexander Scott Mercurio Tuesday to 18 years in prison and lifetime supervised release for a plot to attack churches in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. The FBI arrested Mercurio on April 6, 2024, one day before he planned to carry out the attack.
“America’s founders wanted our Nation to be a place where the faithful of any denomination could exercise their religious beliefs freely and without fear of violence,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for National Security M. Scott Proctor. “Alexander Scott Mercurio planned to attack that fundamental freedom by bringing death and destruction to several churches.”
Mercurio pleased guilty last month to attempting to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization. His lawyers asked for a nine-year prison sentence, arguing that he had abandoned radical Islam and that he was destabilized by a dysfunctional family.
Court documents include disturbing messages sent by Mercurio online discussing his adherence to radical Islam.
“I am a hypocrite who has not even spat in the face of a kafir [a non-Muslim] or donated a single penny in the cause of Allah, let alone spilled their blood and induced terror into their hearts and minds. I have the tools to do so, but I still waiver because I am attached to the worldly life,” he wrote in one message on February 10, 2024.
In the weeks that followed, Mercurio developed his attack plan, according to messages obtained by investigators. He said he wanted the attack to occur during Ramadan and specifically wanted it to happen on Sunday because it was Christians’ “special day.”
In one message, he said he planned to “stop close by the church, equip the weapon(s) and storm the temple, kill as many as possible before they inevitably dispurse/scatter, then burn the temple to the ground and flee the scene, then move onto the next church, rinse and repeat for all 21+ churches in town until killed.”
Mercurio also discussed killing church congregants with a machete and setting churches on fire before moving to the next target. In the days before the attack was set to happen, Mercurio recorded a pledge of allegiance to ISIS.
One day before the planned attack, the FBI executed a search warrant at his home and arrested him. Agents found butane canisters, lighters, handcuffs, a knife, and a machete. They also found guns belonging to his father, which Mercurio had planned to take for the attack.
The FBI first became aware of Mercurio as they investigated a scheme to fund ISIS through cryptocurrency. They tied him to an anonymous social media account and found he was deeply immersed in the world of radical Islam.
A search of his files revealed files glorifying mass killers, audio of jihadi chants calling for “vengeance and blood and speaking of the inexorable advance of the black flag,” and numerous songs downloaded glorifying Islamic conquest.
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