N.C. Man Given 20 Years |for Trying to Help ISIL

(CN) - A North Carolina man was sentenced this week to more than 20 years in prison for trying to provide material support to Islamic State militants.

Donald Ray Morgan, 44, was given 243 months plus three years of supervised release by U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder on May 13 after pleading guilty in October to attempting to give material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

Morgan, of Rowan County, N.C., also pleaded guilty last year to possession of a firearm by a felon.

Prosecutors said that over the course of several months in 2014, Morgan attempted to provide support and services, including his own participation, to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, commonly known as ISIL.

He unsuccessfully tried to travel from Lebanon to Syria to join ISIL and also showed his support for terrorism on social media, the government said.

Morgan was arrested at the JFK International Airport in New York on Aug. 2, 2014, on an indictment for firearm possession by a felon stemming from a 2012 assault rifle possession and sale, the Justice Department said.

Morgan was a former bodybuilding champion who had previously served two years in prison after a 1997 conviction for discharging a firearm in an occupied building, according to a Daily Beast report.

The report includes some of Morgan's tweets, including one that allegedly read: "Allah you brought me here and I need the rest of my journey to join the ranks with the most beautiful brothers on Earth."

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