St. Augustine man sentenced to 20 years for ISIS instructional videos

A St. Augustine man was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in federal prison, followed by 15 years of supervised release, for filming instructional videos on how to make bombs for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, also known as ISIS.

Romeo Xavier Langhorne, 32, pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to provide material support to ISIS on May 13, 2021. According to court documents, Langhorne pledged his allegiance to ISIS at some point in 2014. Between 2018 and 2019, he reaffirmed his support of ISIS on various social media accounts, posted ISIS-produced videos to his YouTube account and participated in online ISIS chat rooms with like-minded people. In December 2018 and January 2019, Langhorne expressed in one of those chat rooms an interest in creating a video that would improve on existing videos demonstrating the making and use of a deadly explosive, triacetone triperoxide (TATP).

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Langhorne began communicating with an undercover employee of the FBI in February 2019 who was posing as someone working on behalf of ISIS. Langhorne told the undercover employee about his plans to create and disseminate an instructional video on making TATP and sought assistance in creating the video. Langhorne also said that, in order to ensure that the video was not removed from the internet by service providers, it should include disclaimers advising that it was intended for educational purposes. However, Langhorne informed the undercover employee that his true purpose in making and distributing the video was to arm ISIS adherents and others with knowledge of how to make TATP and use it for terrorism-related purposes in support of ISIS.

During the summer of 2019, Langhorne sent multiple messages to the undercover employee for assistance with creating a nasheed, which is a form of Islamic vocal music. Langhorne stated he wanted the nasheed to include a particular recording of an ISIS member yelling “Allahu Akbar” while breaking out of prison, as well as a clip of children saying, “kill them all.” Langhorne explained that he wanted the Nasheed “to encourage justified retaliation” against the U.S. for its role in killing Muslims.

The FBI produced a video in accordance with Langhorne’s instructions but featured an inert chemical formula for TATP that would not produce an explosion. In November 2019, the UCE provided versions of the TATP video to Langhorne, which he distributed by uploading it to a video-sharing website.

Langhorne was arrested at his residence in Roanoke, Virginia, on Nov. 15, 2019. Langhorne admitted in a post-arrest interview that he had “probably at some point” pledged allegiance to both ISIS and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was the leader of ISIS from 2014 until his death on Oct. 26, 2019. Langhorne admitted that he communicated with the UCE and that he uploaded the TATP video to the internet.