A former Metro Transit Police officer facing terror charges is disputing some of the allegations made by federal prosecutors.
Nicholas Young, of Fairfax, Virginia, is accused of sending $245 in digital gift cards with the intention of supporting ISIS recruitment. Young, 36, was arrested at Metro headquarters on Aug. 3.
Young appeared in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, Thursday for a detention hearing. A judge ordered that Young remain detained.
Young has denied some of the accusations made against him in an 18-page criminal complaint, according to Young's attorney.
"[Young] doesn't agree with everything that's in the affidavit. There are things in there that he claims are not true," Young's attorney, David Smith, told News4.
Young denies that he told an undercover FBI agent that he tortured animals as a child and that he wanted to kidnap and torture a FBI agent who questioned him.
"He doesn't always mean what he says ... There are things in there that even the FBI didn't take seriously," Smith said.
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But in court documents, federal prosecutors paint a picture of a radicalized man acquainted with terror suspects.
The FBI watched Young for six years and Young met with an informant 20 times.
Smith said the FBI "has helped safeguard the country ... but it's possible to go too far in getting people to do things they may not otherwise do."
Young was raised Catholic, but was in search of a new religion in his twenties. He started studying different faiths and converted to Islam in 2006, when he was about 26 years old, according to Smith.
"There were things about Islam that attracted him. He thought it was a religion that had changed not very much from its origins ... it had nothing to do with terrorism," Smith said.
Smith said Young visited Mosques in Northern Virginia and prayed five times a day. "He takes his Islamic religion seriously," Smith said.
