A Mississippi woman who pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State group was sentenced to 12 years in prison Thursday, Reuters reports.
According to the newswire, Jaelyn Delshaun Young, 20, will serve a 12-year sentence, followed by 15 years of supervised release once she is let out of prison, according to a U.S. Department of Justice statement.
Young's husband and co-defendant, Muhammad Oda Dakhlalla, 23, who pleaded guilty to similar charges in March, is due to be sentenced later this month. Young and Dakhlalla were arrested at a Mississippi airport in August 2015 while attempting to get on a flight headed to Turkey.
Court documents filed by prosecutors show Young acknowledging her role as the "planner of the expedition" in a farewell letter. Young's Twitter also showed her desire to join the Islamic State, which was what initially caught the attention of the FBI in May 2015. An agent posed as a recruiter and began corresponding with Young and Dakhlalla.
The couple told the undercover agent they wanted to help the Islamic State "correct the falsehoods" about the terrorist organization in the U.S. media, such as reports of the group trading young girls as sex slaves.
They also asked about whether the group would offer Koran classes in English, how they would be required to prove that they were Sunni Muslims, and what kind of military training Dakhlalla would get, Reuters reports.
According to Reuters, the couple were motivated to join the Islamic State after seeing the group's executions of people deemed immoral and because they saw the group as "liberators" of parts of Syria and Iraq.
Read more at Reuters.