Heather Elizabeth Coffman Charged with Lying to Investigators about Terrorist Ties

Where did this Virginia woman get the idea that she should support the Islamic State? Didn’t she hear President Obama’s repeated claims that ISIS is not Islamic?

Washington Post—Federal authorities have arrested and charged a Henrico County, Va., woman who they say wrote Facebook posts supportive of the Islamic State and offered to help someone connect with the terrorist group in Syria, court documents show.

Heather Elizabeth Coffman, 29, is charged with making a false statement regarding an offense involving international or domestic terrorism. Coffman, it seems, was caught in a sting and unknowingly offered to help an undercover FBI agent connect someone with the Islamic State in Syria, according to a federal affidavit. Authorities say she lied to investigators who were looking into her support of the extremist group. . . .

According to the FBI affidavit, Coffman told an undercover agent that she had previously arranged for a man she termed her “husband” to travel to Turkey so he could meet with Islamic State facilitators and eventually make his way into Syria. She described “concrete steps” she had taken to achieve that, according to the affidavit. But Coffman and the man soon separated and he backed out of the plan, according to the affidavit.

The FBI’s investigation of Coffman seemed to begin in April, as agents took note of her postings on Facebook and sought search warrants to access her various accounts. On June 23, for example, Coffman posted two images with text that included a fuller name for the Islamic State: “We are all ISIS, Islamic State of Iraq & Sham,” according to the affidavit. On June 28, when someone asked why Coffman was expressing support for the group, she responded, “I love ISIS!” according to the affidavit.

Coffman later wrote about persuading her sister to develop an interest in the Islamic State and said, “My dad is a little angry because I got her into all this jihad stuff,” according to the affidavit. A woman who identified herself as Coffman’s mother declined to comment Monday. (Continue Reading.)

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