Jaelyn Young Pleads Guilty Of Attempting To Join ISIS

Jaelyn Young was 20 when she decided to join the Islamic State group (ISIS). She wrote a letter to her family, confessing her guilt.

"I found the contacts, made arrangements, planned the departure," prosecutors say she wrote last August. "I am guilty of what you soon will find out," according to foxnews. 

On Tuesday, she swore before a federal judge in Aberdeen, Mississippi, that she was guilty of offering material support to a terrorist organization.

The Mississippi State University student is now faced with almost 20 years in prison, $250,000 in fines and lifetime probation.

She will be sentenced later by the U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock.

A similar charge was slapped on her fiance, Muhammad Dakhlalla, who was also drawn to join the terrorists. He too pleaded guilty and will be sentenced along with her. Both are jailed in Oxford.

Young is the daughter of a school administrator as well as a police officer in the Navy reserve. Being a former honor student, cheerleader and homecoming maid at Vicksburg's Warren Central High School, she converted to Islam last Aug 8, while she was studying chemistry at Mississippi State University. She got lured to join ISIS partly by online videos.She started wearing burqas.

"After her conversion, Young distanced herself from family and friends and felt spending time with non-Muslims would be a bad influence," prosecutors wrote earlier this month.

Court statements cited her repeated complaints of the treatment of Muslims in the United States and the United Kingdom. Watching pro-ISIS group videos made her think of them as liberators.

"Young continually asked Dakhlalla when they were going to join (ISIS) and began to express hatred for the U.S. government and to express support for the implementation of Sharia law in the United States," prosecutors wrote.

Finally, after Young had made up her mind, she just decided to leave after saying goodbye to her family. "Do not alert the authorities," Young wrote in the farewell letter to her family, little knowing the FBI knew about her plan. "I will contact you soon. I am safe. Don't look for me because you won't be able to retrieve me if you tried. I am leaving to become a medic."