Old Dominion shooter convicted of Islamic State ties released from prison just 2 years before attack

Court documents show less than two years after Mohamed Bailor Jalloh was released from prison for attempting to aid the Islamic State, he opened fire in a classroom at Virginia’s Old Dominion University on Thursday before ROTC students subdued and killed him.

The shooting that left one person dead and another two injured has raised questions about why Jalloh, who the FBI identified as the gunman, was imprisoned and the conditions of his release — with some elected officials questioning how someone with known ties to the Islamic State was able to carry out such an attack.

“The horrific tragedy that occurred today on ODU’s campus never should have happened,” U.S. Rep. Jen Kiggans, who represents the congressional district neighboring the university, wrote on Facebook.

After Jalloh pleaded guilty in October 2016 to providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization — the Islamic State group — a federal judge sentenced him in 2017 to an 11-year prison term with credit for time served retroactive to his July 2016 arrest.

Jalloh was released from federal custody Dec. 23, 2024. It wasn’t immediately clear why his release from prison was moved up. Inmates can get time off of their sentences for a variety of reasons, but it isn’t known if that happened in this case.

He was on supervised release, which is comparable to probation, when he carried out the attack on Thursday. Based on his release date, that would’ve run into 2029.

Confessions to undercover agents

Jalloh’s October 2016 plea came after a three-month sting operation in which he, then 26, confessed to an undercover FBI agent that he was thinking about carrying out an attack similar to the 2009 shootings at Fort Hood, which left 13 people dead. Authorities launched the 2016 operation after Jalloh made contact with Islamic State members in Africa earlier that year.

Jalloh later told the informant that the Islamic State group had asked if he wanted to participate in an attack. He tried to donate $500 to the group, but the money actually went to an account controlled by the FBI, according to court documents.

Jalloh then tried to buy an AR-15 assault rifle from a Virginia gun store but was turned away because he lacked the proper paperwork. The affidavit says he returned the next day and bought a different assault rifle. Prosecutors said the rifle was rendered inoperable before Jalloh left the store, unbeknownst to Jalloh. He was arrested the following day.

Debate over sentencing

The Justice Department in 2017 requested a 20-year prison sentence for Jalloh, noting that he had made multiple attempts to join the Islamic State and had attempted to acquire a gun to carry out a murder plot.

“The defendant was fully aware of what he was doing, and the consequences of those actions. His only misgivings seemed to be a fear that he would waver at the critical moment,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

They added: “By putting the idea of this murder plot into religious terms, and by suggesting that murdering members of the US military would be a path to heaven, the defendant showed how strongly committed he was to the deadly ideology” of the Islamic State.

Jalloh’s lawyers asked for a sentence of 6½ years in prison and requested that he be placed in a facility that provides residential drug treatment for inmates with addiction and substance abuse issues.

U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, sentenced him instead to 11 years in prison.

The judge also ordered Jalloh to participate in a program for substance abuse testing and treatment and mental health treatment, and requested that he be evaluated for the federal prison system’s residential drug program.

Completing the Residential Drug Abuse Program can reduce an inmate’s prison sentence by up to a year, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons. It wasn’t immediately clear if Jalloh qualified for the program. Normally, inmates serving sentences for terrorism-related offenses aren’t eligible.

In addition, some inmates who stay out of trouble in prison can reduce their sentence by earning up to 54 days of good conduct time credit for each year of their sentence. However, under the 2018 prison reform law known as the First Step Act, inmates convicted of terrorism-related offenses are not eligible for such credit.

Troubled shooter lured by radical cleric

Little is publicly known about Jalloh, who was a naturalized citizen from Sierra Leone. But court documents depict him as a troubled man who was radicalized by Anwar al-Awlaki, a well-known American imam who became an al-Qaida propagandist.

The Virginia Army National Guard confirmed he served as a specialist from 2009 until 2015, when he was honorably discharged. Jalloh told a government informant he quit the National Guard after hearing lectures from al-Awlaki, according to a 2016 FBI affidavit filed in his criminal case.

In a letter to the federal judge that presided over his sentencing, Jalloh wrote: “I feel deep regret in having been driven by my emotions rather than my intellect and becoming involved with such an evil organization. … I reject and deplore terrorism and any groups associated with it, especially ISIL.”

He wrote that he started using drugs after his girlfriend ended their six-year relationship.

“The pain I felt internally was unbearable, and drugs and alcohol were the only things that took that pain away,” Jalloh wrote. “I started doing marijuana, coke and mushrooms using one of them at least on a daily basis in order to kill the pain I was in and to fill in the void I felt internally.”

The letter itself remains under seal, but his lawyer included excerpts of it in his sentencing memorandum.