She Pledged Allegiance to ISIS Online. Then She Cased a State Capitol to Bomb It, the FBI Says.
Federal prosecutors said on Aug. 20, 2026, that an Albany woman was radicalized online, recorded oaths of allegiance to the Islamic State group and plotted to set off a bomb inside the New York State Capitol. An FBI undercover operation, they said, stopped her as she took possession of a device she believed was real.
The Justice Department on Aug. 20 announced federal terrorism charges against Jessica Bowie, 35, of Albany, New York, accusing her of attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State group, or ISIS, a designated foreign terrorist organization, prosecutors said in announcing the case. Bowie, who authorities say was radicalized online, allegedly plotted to detonate an explosive device at the New York State Capitol to kill public officials before fleeing to ISIS-controlled territory in Syria, CNN reported. She was arrested on Aug. 19 as she took possession of what she believed was a working bomb but was in fact an inert device supplied in an FBI sting, NBC News reported.
The charge
Bowie made an initial appearance in federal court in the Northern District of New York on the single count of attempting to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, the Justice Department said. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, a fine of up to 250,000 dollars and the possibility of lifetime supervised release, according to CNN. The allegations are set out in a criminal complaint and have not been tested in court; a charge is not a conviction, and Bowie is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty, the department noted.
Radicalized online
Bowie converted to Islam about five years ago and became radicalized online, creating several social-media accounts under an honorific Islamic name, NBC News reported, citing the complaint. She appeared to open new accounts repeatedly because earlier ones were “frequently suspended by providers for violating their terms of use,” according to NBC News. Prosecutors say she pledged allegiance to ISIS in multiple audio recordings in English and Arabic, and expressed support for terrorist attacks, CNN reported. On one account attributed to her, the complaint says she wrote, “Praise be to Allah for September 11,” and, “When I can migrate, I will poison these infidels,” according to CNN.
The plot, and the sting that ended it
By mid-July, an undercover FBI operative posing as an ISIS facilitator was communicating with Bowie, who described her intent to bomb the New York State Capitol, CNN reported. She told the target of the plot that she wanted to “destroy as much of the building as possible” and kill officials there, and asked the undercover operative for help “making explosives to carry out an attack,” then deleted the messages, CBS News reported. The complaint says she surveilled the Capitol on about five occasions, photographing the building, and bought bomb-making materials before she was shown an inert device and handed 200 dollars as a donation to the purported bombmaker, according to CNN. Agents arrested her on Aug. 19 when she took possession of that device, NBC News reported.
‘Before she could act’
First Assistant U.S. Attorney John A. Sarcone III said law enforcement “stopped this defendant before she could act on her plan to bring terror to the Capital Region and the United States,” the Justice Department said. The announcement was made by Sarcone, Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg and the FBI special agent in charge of the Albany field office, Craig L. Tremaroli, according to the department. The case follows a familiar pattern that counterterrorism officials and researchers describe in domestic plots: a path that runs from anonymous accounts and encrypted chats to real-world surveillance, with much of the radicalization taking place on platforms before any move toward violence, NBC News reported.