Lionel Nelson Williams
Charged: December 20, 2016
Affiliation
ISIS
State
Virginia
District
Eastern District of Virginia
Sting
Yes
Involves Informant
No
Charges
- Material support
FISA Notification
No
Pleaded Guilty: August 15, 2017
Sentenced: December 20, 2017
Imprisonment
20 years
Supervised Release
life
Details
Age
32Gender
MaleRace
Unknown
The FBI received a complaint that Lionel Nelson Williams had been posting ISIS propaganda on Facebook and had recently acquired an AK-47 assault rifle. An FBI inquiry into Virginia firearms sales data revealed that Williams had purchased the AK-47 from an online dealer the day after the San Bernardino shootings. Undercover FBI employees, posing as ISIS members, began to correspond with Williams online. Williams provided one of the undercover employees with account information to access $200 from a prepaid cash card. When Williams was arrested, FBI agents found in his possession a semi-automatic handgun and the AK-47 rifle.
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
