Alexander Scott Mercurio, the Idaho man accused of plotting a church attack on behalf of the Islamic State group, has been sentenced to 18 years in federal prison for attempting to provide material support to the organization. The planned bloodshed was stopped before it began, as reported by The New York Post.

Mercurio, 21, pleaded guilty to the federal terrorism charge last month. US District Judge David C. Nye imposed the sentence Tuesday and said Mercurio would be placed on lifetime supervised release after completing his prison term.

Prosecutors said Mercurio pledged allegiance to IS and planned to attack churches in Coeur d’Alene on the group’s behalf. His planned arsenal included explosives, knives, firearms and other weapons.

ISIS TERRORIST SENTENCED

A Idaho man was sentenced to 18 years in prison after being convicted of trying to support the terrorist group ISIS. Alexander Scott Mercurio planned to hit his father with a metal pipe, take his father’s guns, and carry out a mass attack on churches in Idaho in the name of ISIS. He also intended to use weapons covered in flames, explosives, knives, and a machete. When police searched his home, they found butane canisters, lighters, handcuffs, a knife, a machete, and several of his father’s firearms. Days before the planned attack, he stood in front of an ISIS flag while holding a knife and pledged his loyalty to the group. The FBI arrested him on April 6, 2024, one day before he planned to carry out the attack. Earlier, in 2023, he had also created an online collection of pro-ISIS materials to spread the group’s ideology. — Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) November 11, 2026

The FBI arrested Mercurio on April 6, 2024, just one day before the attack was scheduled to take place, according to prosecutors. The arrest brought the church assault plot to an abrupt end.

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Idaho US Attorney John Shirts said the punishment delivered an unmistakable warning to anyone considering similar violence. Shirts said the sentence “sends the clear message that where individuals intend to pursue acts of terrorism against the United States — whether in Coeur d’Alene, or any other community — they will be brought to justice.”

Mercurio’s defense attorneys, Carter Powers Beggs and J. Stephen Roberts Jr. of the Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington and Idaho, declined to comment on the case. They did, however, describe his personal history and radicalization in a court document.

The attorneys portrayed Mercurio as a depressed teenager who was raised in a dysfunctional family and exposed to white supremacist ideology at a young age. They also wrote that he was dealing with family trauma and had become isolated from the outside world.

During that period of isolation, Mercurio was befriended online by a government informant, according to his attorneys. By then, they said, he had already moved among several political ideologies before embracing radical Islam when the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020.

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“Starting when he was just 17 years old, Mr. Mercurio spent his days holed away in his basement bedroom, talking with his best friend about increasingly radical terrorist ideologies,” his attorneys wrote.

The defense filing described the violent scheme that grew out of those conversations. “Together they brainstormed a plan that was as horrific as it was unlikely to succeed: a suicidal attack on local churches using his father’s firearms and an untested improvised explosive/flamethrower.”

Mercurio’s attorneys said he has since renounced his extremist beliefs. They also said he had been assessed as presenting a low risk of future danger.

The defense asked Nye to sentence Mercurio to nine years in prison. The judge instead imposed the 18 year federal prison term, followed by supervised release for the rest of Mercurio’s life.

Court records show that Mercurio created an online repository containing material supporting IS. He initially wanted to travel overseas to help the organization, but lacked the money and other resources needed to make the trip.

Shortly before his arrest, Mercurio provided the government informant with an audio recording in which he pledged support for IS. He also supplied a photograph showing himself holding a knife while standing in front of an IS flag.

The US government designates the Islamic State group as a terrorist organization. In 2014, the group took control of a large amount of territory in Syria and Iraq and declared that territory a caliphate.

By 2018, the group had been largely defeated in both Syria and Iraq. It nevertheless retains sleeper cells that conduct deadly attacks in both countries, while IS affiliates also continue to operate in West Africa.

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