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Here's How Much Time This Former Cheerleader Will Serve for Helping ISIS

Jaelyn Young's life as she knows it is over.

Jaelyn Delshaun Young made headlines recently for getting caught giving ISIS a helping hand. Now, she's facing the consequences.

The former cheerleader from Mississippi will serve a 12-year prison sentence with 15 years of supervised release after pleading guilty to conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State.

Young, 20, and her husband, Muhammad Oda Dakhlalla, 23, who is due to be sentenced later this month, were arrested when they were stopped trying to board a flight from Mississippi to Turkey in August 2015. 

Court documents showed that Young acknowledged her role as the "planner of the expedition" in a farewell letter. Young's Twitter also showed her desire to join the Islamic State, which is what caught the eye of the FBI. The couple later began corresponding with an undercover agent posing as an ISIS recruiter. 

The couple expressed interest in correcting the "falsehoods" about the terrorist organization that exist within the United States, also asking if the terrorist group would offer Quran lessons in English, and what kind of military training Dakhlalla would get once they arrived in Syria.

It's a chilling example of homegrown radicalization. While Young and her husband were trying to join ISIS and the undercover agent had instead been an actual recruiter it is easy to imagine them being motivated to carry out an attack within the United States.

Thankfully it didn't come to that in this case.

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