A 21-year-old Coeur d'Alene man was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison Tuesday after admitting he plotted to attack churchgoers on behalf of the Islamic State group, a scheme federal agents disrupted just one day before he intended to carry it out. Alexander Scott Mercurio will also serve lifetime supervised release once his prison term ends.
Sentencing Handed Down in Boise
U.S. District Judge David C. Nye imposed the sentence in Boise, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, which said Mercurio was convicted of attempting to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization. Mercurio pleaded guilty to the federal terrorism charge last month, as reported by KTLA, which credited Associated Press reporter Rebecca Boone with the account.
Prosecutors said Mercurio pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and planned to attack individuals at churches in Coeur d'Alene on its behalf, per the same account. According to an affidavit described by the U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Idaho, he intended to carry out the attack on April 7, 2024, using weapons including knives, firearms, and fire. Prosecutors said he planned to use explosives, knives, firearms, and other weapons in the attack, KTLA's reporting notes.
Arrested One Day Before Planned Attack
The FBI arrested Mercurio on April 6, 2024, one day before the attack was set to occur, according to prosecutors cited in the KTLA report. Court records described by the outlet say Mercurio had given a government informant an audio recording pledging support for the Islamic State group and a photo of himself holding a knife in front of an Islamic State flag shortly before his arrest. The same records indicate he had initially wanted to travel overseas to support the group but lacked the money and resources to do so, and that he had created an online repository for pro-Islamic State content.
John Shirts said the sentence sends a clear message that people intending terrorism against the United States will be brought to justice, the outlet reported. Mercurio was represented by defense attorneys Carter Powers Beggs and J. Stephen Roberts Jr., who are employed by the Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington and Idaho; the attorneys declined to comment on the case, per the report.
Defense Described Troubled Teen Years
Court documents described by KTLA say defense attorneys portrayed Mercurio as a depressed teen raised in a dysfunctional family that exposed him to white supremacist ideology at a young age. The attorneys said he was befriended online by a government informant while dealing with family trauma and isolation, and that he embraced radical Islam when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020. He was 17 years old when he began spending his days in his basement bedroom discussing increasingly radical terrorist ideologies, the defense said, and he and his best friend brainstormed a suicidal attack on local churches using his father's firearms and an untested improvised explosive or flamethrower, according to the same account.
Defense attorneys asked the judge to impose nine years in prison, arguing Mercurio had renounced his extremist views and had been assessed as a low risk of future danger, per the outlet's reporting. The judge ultimately imposed the 18-year sentence instead.
Islamic State's Broader Reach
The Islamic State group, designated a terror group by the U.S. government, took control of a large area of territory in Syria and Iraq in 2014 and declared it a caliphate before being largely defeated there in 2018, the report notes. The group still maintains sleeper cells that carry out deadly attacks in Syria and Iraq, and affiliates operate in West Africa, according to the same reporting.
