Jaelyn Young will spend the next 12 years of her life in federal prison for trying to join terror group ISIS.
The 20-year-old honor student from Vicksburg was arrested Aug. 8, 2015. She was charged with conspiring and attempting to join a terrorist organization.
The daughter of a school administrator fought back tears as she apologized to her family and friends in open court in Oxford.
Young told the judge she suffered from bouts of anxiety and depression and she was a cutter who mutilated herself with sharp objects.
“That’s not who I am,” said Young, who contemplated suicide in the past.
Prosecutors from the federal government read letters Young wrote to her fiancé Muhammed Dakhlalla. The letters were written while she was in federal custody.
Dakhlalla and Young were arrested by the feds at the Golden Triangle Regional Airport in Columbus.
Prosecutors said Young and Dakhlalla planned to fly to Turkey then cross over the border into Syria to join ISIS.
Young’s mother, Banita Young, told the judge her daughter called her from Mississippi State and told her “It’s too much. I can’t do it.”
She said she encouraged Jaelyn, adding she didn’t know the pressures her daughter was under at school.
Federal prosecutors asked the judge to sentence Young to 20 years in prison. But the judge considered Young’s age, her mental health, and her lack of criminal history in sentencing her.
