The San Joaquin County man arrested near the Canadian border earlier this month was indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury in Sacramento on a charge of attempting to support a foreign terrorist organization.
Nicholas Michael Teausant, a 20-year-old community college student and National Guard member from Acampo, abandoned that life on March 15 to join a terrorist group in Syria, according to court papers.
But, the papers say, he was forced to abort his plan after the FBI caught up with him as he was about to cross into Canada.
Wednesday’s one-count, one-paragraph indictment alleges that Teausant, also known as “Assad,” attempted to provide support and resources, “namely himself, to work under the direction and control of al-Qa’ida in Iraq, which has been designated by the secretary of state as a foreign terrorist organization since … 2004 … and which announced a name change to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in … April 2013.”
The charge carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.