Matthew Aaron Llaneza, a 29-year-old San Jose resident, was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison after trying to blow up a bank with a car bomb that he expected to explode, but didn’t because of the materials that it was made with, which was supplied by the FBI.
Llaneza pulled this stunt in attempt to join the terrorist group, the Taliban. The 29 year old was arrested after he tried to blow of the bank, with the help of an undercover FBI agent, by blowing up an SVU filled with chemicals by a Bank of America in Oakland, California.
According to NBN News, Llaneza told the undercover FBI agent that he wanted to commit violent acts in the name of Islam and then flee from the United States.
Assistant Federal Public Defender Jerome Matthews, Llaneza’s lawyer, wrote in a memo that, “Matthew was not a radicalized jihadist but rather a delusional, severely mentally disturbed young man; he had no technical skills to speak of. He had no training or background that would have helped him to accomplish an actual bombing; he was preternaturally suggestible and desirous of being accepted; and, not least, he had no desire to inflict mass casualties,” according to the Associated Press .
Taking into account that the San Jose resident has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, U.S. District Judge Virginia Gonzalez Rogers sentenced Llaneza to 30 years in federal prison, and then lowered it to 15 after he agreed to seek psychiatric attention in prison.