An Augusta-area woman has pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support and resources to ISIS and will face up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines when she is sentenced Feb. 5, federal court records show.
The Justice Department announced Kim Anh Vo's arrest in March, saying she was apprehended in Hephzibah, which sits about 14 miles southwest of Augusta.
Vo is at least the second person in the Southeast to be charged this year with supporting ISIS, also known as the Islamic State. On Thursday, the Justice Department announced the indictment of Romeo Xavier Langhorne, 30, of Roanoke, Va., accusing him of attempting to provide material support and resources to ISIS. Langhorne, according to the Justice Department, was seeking to help ISIS adherents arm themselves with deadly explosives for terrorism.
After signing a plea deal in June, Vo — who also goes by “Zozo,” “Miss.Bones” and “Kitty Lee” — told a federal judge in New York that she joined and recruited for the United Cyber Caliphate, an online group that has pledged allegiance to ISIS.
Justice Department officials said the group and its subgroups have disseminated online “kill lists,” identifying U.S. soldiers and U.S. State Department workers. One such list from April 2016 identified about 3,600 people in the New York City area and was labeled “We Want them #Dead.” Two years ago, the group posted another kill list with the names of more than 8,000 people and links to a video that said: “We have a message to the people of the U.S., and, most important, your President Trump: Know that we continue to wage war against you.” The video contained what appeared to be a graphic depiction of a man being decapitated.
Vo sought to recruit others to join the group and assist it with its hacking efforts, according to the Justice Department. Among them was a minor living in Norway. Vo allegedly recruited that person to create an online video threatening a New York City-based nonprofit group that fights the promotion of extremist ideologies.
“During the age of 16 years old, I used social media a lot, and I agreed with others to commit an act against the United States by joining an online group called the United Cyber Caliphate, which is a group that pledges allegiance to ISIS,” Vo told U.S. District Court Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald, who late last month set Vo’s sentencing date. “And I supported the United Cyber Caliphate by recruiting, translating, and editing messages that they posted online. I knew when I was doing this that it was very wrong and highly illegal.”
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