CALIFORNIA MAN CHARGED WITH SUPPORTING ISIL

East County News Service

Photo: 2011 high school yearbook at El Modena High School

March 4, 2015 (San Diego) – The. U.S. Attorney’s office announced today that an Orange County man who tried to travel to Syria last year has been indicted on federal offenses including attempting to provide material support to the terrorist group ISIL, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

The indictment against Adam Dandach, 21, was handed down today by a federal grand jury in Santa Ana.

Dandach, a U.S. citizen, also known as “Fadi Fadi Dandach,” is charged in the indictment with one count of attempting to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, two counts of making a false statement on a passport application that was obtained in order to facilitate international terrorism, and one count of obstruction of justice for attempting to destroy records after his arrest last July.

Dandach was attempting to travel from Orange County’s John Wayne Airport to Istanbul with the intention of traveling to Syria.  Dandach told FBI agents that he was traveling to Syria for the purpose of pledging his alliance and assistance to ISIL, and that he believed the killings of American soldiers are justified, according to court documents.

On July 16, 2014, Dandach was indicted by a federal grand jury for making false statements on a passport application.  He entered a plea of not guilty in July 2014 and has been held in federal custody without bond since that time.

According to the indictment returned today, Dandach knowingly attempted to provide material support and resources, namely himself, to work under the direction and control of ISIL. The indictment further alleges that Dandach, in order to facilitate an act of international terrorism, lied when applying for a replacement passport and then presented the passport to an airline employee for the purpose of traveling to Istanbul.  He was also indicted for allegedly attempting to obstruct the investigation by directing another person to instruct a website administrator to delete his post history on that website.

Dandach is scheduled to be arraigned on the indictment on March 16, 2015.

If convicted of all the charges in the indictment, Dandach would face a statutory maximum sentence of 15 years in federal prison for the material support charge, up to 25 years for each of the two passport fraud charges, and a statutory maximum of 25 years for obstruction of justice offense.

This investigation was conducted by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in Orange County.  Dandach is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, with the assistance of the Counterterrorism Section of the National Security Division.