Demetrius Pitts
Charged: July 02, 2018
Affiliation
Al Qaeda
State
Ohio
District
Northern District of Ohio
Sting
Yes
Involves Informant
No
Charges
- Material support
FISA Notification
No
Pleaded Guilty: November 05, 2019
Sentenced: February 11, 2020
Imprisonment
14 years
Supervised Release
life
Details
Age
52Gender
MaleRace
Black
Demetrius Pitts first came to the FBI's attention in 2015, when he sent an inflammatory Facebook message to a California political commentary program. The FBI then monitored Pitts as he posted messages on Facebook that advocates for Muslims to engage in violence. After Pitts said he wanted to target members of the U.S. military, an FBI undercover agent posing as an Al Qaeda sympathizer met with him. Pitts said he wanted to attack multiple cities simultaneously on the Fourth of July holiday of 2018. Pitts pledged an oath of allegiance to Al Qaeda and was arrested after discussing a car bomb with undercover agents.
About this database
This database of terrorism prosecutions and sentencing information was created using public records including three lists of prosecutions from the U.S. Department of Justice (from 2010, 2014, and 2015), court files available through the federal judiciary’s case management system, DOJ press releases, and inmate data from the Bureau of Prisons. For each defendant in the database, U.S. criminal code data related to charges has been categorized according to this legend.
Trevor Aaronson created the first iteration of this database as part of a project funded by the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California, Berkeley. Mother Jones magazine published that data in 2011, along with accompanying articles, in a package that is still available online.
Beginning in 2016, Aaronson and Margot Williams collaborated to update and expand the database, with a new emphasis to include Bureau of Prisons data because so many post-9/11 terrorism defendants had been released. The cases include any prosecutions after September 11, 2001, that the U.S. government labeled as international terrorism-related. The Intercept first published this database on April 20, 2017, and it was last updated on .
This database, which can be downloaded as a CSV file, is licensed under Creative Commons for noncommercial uses with appropriate attribution. If you publish this database, in part or whole, you must credit Trevor Aaronson and Margot Williams.
Trevor Aaronson created the first iteration of this database as part of a project funded by the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California, Berkeley. Mother Jones magazine published that data in 2011, along with accompanying articles, in a package that is still available online.
Beginning in 2016, Aaronson and Margot Williams collaborated to update and expand the database, with a new emphasis to include Bureau of Prisons data because so many post-9/11 terrorism defendants had been released. The cases include any prosecutions after September 11, 2001, that the U.S. government labeled as international terrorism-related. The Intercept first published this database on April 20, 2017, and it was last updated on .
This database, which can be downloaded as a CSV file, is licensed under Creative Commons for noncommercial uses with appropriate attribution. If you publish this database, in part or whole, you must credit Trevor Aaronson and Margot Williams.
Credits
Database compiled by Trevor Aaronson and Margot Williams
Data Visualization: Moiz Syed
Developers: Akil Harris, Westley Hennigh-Palermo
Editors: Sharon Weinberger, Andrea Jones, Roger Hodge, Eseosa Olumhense
Additional Research: Alleen Brown, Malak Habbak, John Thomason
Art Direction: Philipp Hubert, Soohee Cho
Product Manager: LJ Ruell
Research Director: Lynn Dombek
Editor-in-Chief: Betsy Reed
Data Visualization: Moiz Syed
Developers: Akil Harris, Westley Hennigh-Palermo
Editors: Sharon Weinberger, Andrea Jones, Roger Hodge, Eseosa Olumhense
Additional Research: Alleen Brown, Malak Habbak, John Thomason
Art Direction: Philipp Hubert, Soohee Cho
Product Manager: LJ Ruell
Research Director: Lynn Dombek
Editor-in-Chief: Betsy Reed
