Overview
- U.S. District Judge Adam B. Abelson on Wednesday sentenced Michael Sam Teekaye Jr., 22, to 15 years in prison followed by lifetime supervised release after he pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to ISIS.
- Prosecutors say Teekaye communicated with an undercover FBI officer about traveling from Baltimore/Washington International Airport through Istanbul and Ethiopia to reach Somalia to join ISIS and received travel documents and airline tickets tied to that plan.
- After his Oct. 14, 2024 arrest at BWI, a forensic search of Teekaye’s phone uncovered searches for specific Jewish and Israeli individuals and organizations in Howard County and queries like “how to break into a home,” which prosecutors say showed a domestic “plan B.”
- Investigators documented preparatory steps including purchases of ammunition and range time in May–June 2024, an attempted July 2024 purchase of a Kalashnikov-style rifle that was denied because of probation, and two homemade weapons found in his jail cell before sentencing.
- Federal authorities said the case shows how undercover human sources, Joint Terrorism Task Force coordination and digital forensics can disrupt both foreign-fighter travel routes and follow-on domestic threats, a pattern reflected in related mid-2026 terrorism arrests.