California prison counselor in California turns to jihad, fights for ISIS, FBI says

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Apparently jihad recruitment in the prisons is not just for prisoners.

He was a prison counselor in California before he turned to jihad, FBI says

By Benjy Engle, Sacramento Bee, February 14, 2018:

A former Sacramento youth counselor for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is awaiting extradition to the U.S. on suspicion he lied to the FBI about his role fighting alongside Islamic militants in Syria.

Brian Arthur Dempsey Sr., 46, faces five charges of false statements involving international terrorism, up to eight years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years probation if convicted.

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Dempsey supervised wards and oversaw rehabilitation programs for CDCR’s Division of Juvenile Justice – then known as the California Youth Authority – from March 2001 until he resigned in April 2012, said Bill Sessa, CDCR spokesman. He commuted from his Sacramento home to two Stockton-area prisons as well as Preston Youth Correctional Facility in Ione over that 11-year span.

 In July 2013, Dempsey left Sacramento for the Syrian city A’zaz, about an hour from Aleppo, near the Turkish border. There, he and an accomplice referred to as “Person A” joined rebel fighters in a group called Ahrar al-Sham, according to federal court documents.

Dempsey stayed in A’zaz for 1 1/2 months before attempting to fly home through Fiumicino International Airport in Rome, where he was detained by an FBI special agent. He told the agent he and Person A had gone to Syria to help refugees from the fight against Bashar al-Assad’s regime, but ended up sitting around with no opportunity to lend aid. There were no significant refugee camps in A’zaz or Aleppo at the time, according to federal court documents.

Unable to fly home, Dempsey was interviewed again in Italy in January 2014, where he reportedly admitted to lying about his militant activity in the previous discussion. Dempsey also told the FBI agent he had instructed his brother not to tell government officials about his plan to go to Syria, contradicting a previous statement that he had asked his brother to check with federal authorities whether doing so was legal, according to federal court documents.

Virtually everyone Dempsey met in A’zaz was fighting for Assad’s regime or a rebel group, including members of well-known terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front, according to statements he reportedly made to the agent. He and an attorney discussed a possible plea deal with the U.S. government for nine months until he reportedly cut off communication and fled Italy in October 2014.

Dempsey remained off the radar until he was arrested on Jan. 18, 2017, by British authorities. The U.S. Eastern District of California Court ruled to unseal his indictment six days later.

Neither the United States nor the United Nations Security Council has formally recognized Ahrar al-Sham as a terrorist organization, though countries that back the Syrian government – including Russia and Iran – have long been pushing for it to be classified as such. The rebel group had an estimated 18,000 to 20,000 members as of last year.

Dempsey’s contacts in the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front could have been enough to raise the FBI’s suspicions despite Ahrar al-Sham’s somewhat ambiguous status, George Washington University research fellow Bennett Clifford said. People can be relatively easily added to the federal government’s no-fly list despite a lack of material support for terrorism, said Clifford, who co-authored a study on Americans becoming jihadi released last week.

Dempsey converted from Catholicism to Islam sometime between 2011 and 2013 and was one of the oldest Americans suspecting of turning to jihad this decade, according to the study. Public records show his last listed address in Sacramento was on the 4700 block of Large Oak Court, half a mile from the Sacramento Area League of Associated Muslims’ offices.

“Given the lack of publicly available evidence about these cases, it is especially hard to determine how a former correctional officer and a former ‘sovereign citizen’ who both converted to Islam met one another, and decided to travel to Syria to fight,” the study said. “Dempsey’s eventual extradition and prosecution in the U.S. may bring more details to light. However, these cases are reminders that the social connections that influence travelers are not always straightforward or conventional.”

Sessa declined to discuss Dempsey’s job performance or reputation within the prisons, citing California Department of Corrections policies prohibiting him from discussing ex-employees’ job performances.

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End PCD
End PC
6 years ago

IMO no Muslim can be completely trusted to never turn to jihad: Sudden Jihad Syndrome is very real and has occurred too often.

“This is what I have dubbed the Sudden Jihad Syndrome, whereby normal appearing Muslims abruptly become violent.”https://www.nysun.com/foreign/quiet-spoken-muslims-who-turn-to-terror/29080/

If a Muslim is a truly kind & gentle soul then he should dump Islam – a warlike religion of extreme intolerance.

Mahou Shoujo
Mahou Shoujo
6 years ago
Reply to  End PC

To be a muslim a creature must be ignorant, violent, self centred and stupid.

JppD
Jpp
6 years ago
Reply to  Mahou Shoujo

Hi, I know muslim quite very smart and non-violent working hard in science but they born muslim and never dare to go to away from islam because they are probably afraid of convertion (death penalty) and they will also loose all family connections… it’s quite hard to do. We have to help thoses one to stay on side of good and not targetting their faith but of course it is just a matter of balance.

JppD
Jpp
6 years ago
Reply to  Jpp

yes, why ?

JppD
Jpp
6 years ago
Reply to  Jpp

Will do, I was tired, thanks for advice

Suresh
Suresh
6 years ago

US govt was supporting , funding , training anti-Assad jihadi groups including Al-nushra and ISIS till ISIS got more ambitious with their caliphate plans. so how can he be charged with terrorism when he is supposed to have joined these groups funded by obama govt against Assad ? LOL ! Does it not make Obama also guilty of this crime?

Muslims are united in their goal of occupation , domination , terrorising and subjugation and practice Islamic Art Of Occupation & Ethnic Cleansing Without Killing http://bit.ly/2y1iju8

while infidels are clueless and disunited. Unite,fund, support conservative , patriotic bloggers, youtube channels etc and share the info to inform, Organise and resist . Or you’ll end up in a Islamic hellhole

Mahou Shoujo
Mahou Shoujo
6 years ago

Sentence him to life in syria, cheaper for the tax payer, let the punishment suit the crime

Achmed Mohammedan
Achmed Mohammedan
6 years ago
Reply to  Mahou Shoujo

I have always doubted the reason/logic of bringing something, like that, back to charge it. Simply ban entry, into the US … none of these things should ever be back on US soil.

R. Arandas
R. Arandas
6 years ago

DEPORT him to a random Muslim country, no more money should be wasted on him, not even in prison.

Dagonet
Dagonet
6 years ago

Guy lived half a mile from the SALAM offices in Sacramento? F-ing round up all the goatF-ers from that office and deport them. There’s no F-ing way they didn’t know. Guilty by association. Guilty of being F-ing POS.

Ed Newbold
Ed Newbold
6 years ago

An ISIS-trained youth counselor. Oh great! Just what we need, and of COURSE he’s working in California, the singularly most crime-ridden state in the union. Send him to Gitmo right now!

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