Safya Roe Yassin, Twitter Threats, Missouri 2016

Buffalo Woman Pleads Guilty to ISIS Tweets

Safya Roe Yassin, a 40-year-old resident of Buffalo, Missouri, pleaded guilty in federal court to using Twitter to transmit threatening communications against several persons, including two FBI employees and two former members of the military and their families, on behalf of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, also known as ISIS.

Yassin admitted that she maintained a series of Twitter accounts under the pseudonym “Muslimah” that she used to post, or tweet, messages in support of ISIS, and re-posted, or re-tweeted, messages she knew were authored by ISIS operatives residing overseas.

Beginning in May 2015, Yassin communicated over Twitter with a person identified in court documents as “Individual A,” whom she believed was an ISIS operative located outside the United States. They discussed ISIS’s publishing of personally identifying information of U.S. government employees and others, to threaten violence against those persons on behalf of ISIS.

Yassin re-tweeted personally identifying information on her Muslimah accounts several times so that the information could be more widely disseminated. Throughout the month of August 2015, ISIS operatives tweeted additional personally identifying information, which Yassin re-tweeted to her followers, knowing that the intent of the messages was to threaten on behalf of ISIS.

Yassin admitted that she intended to aid and assist Individual A in threatening Victims 3 and 4, two U.S. service members. Under federal statutes, Yassin is subject to a sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison without parole.

Yassin pleaded guilty to two counts of transmitting threatening communications across state lines, contained in a July 19, 2016, federal indictment. The sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the United States Probation Office.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdmo/pr/buffalo-woman-pleads-guilty-twitter-threats-behalf-isis