ISIS terror plotter, 26, who planned foiled New Year's Eve machete attack is sentenced to 20 years in prison and claims: 'There's going to be more of us'

  • Emanuel Lutchman, of Rochester, was sentenced to 20 years for 2015 terror plot
  • He plotted a New Year's machete attack at Rochester restaurant Merchant's Grill
  • After receiving a sentence twice as long as he expected, he shouted 'there's going to be more of us' 
  • In response the judge increased Lutchman's supervised release after he serves time from 30 years to 50 years

By Associated Press Reporter and Karen Ruiz For Dailymail.com

Published: 17:58 EST, 26 January 2017 | Updated: 18:01 EST, 26 January 2017

Ex-convict, Emanuel Lutchman, 26, of Rochester, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Thursday which led to his outburst shouting: 'There's going to be more of us'

An ex-convict who plotted a foiled New Year's Eve machete attack at an upstate New York restaurant in the name of the Islamic State group was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Thursday. 

His sentencing provoked a courtroom outburst in which he shouted 'there's going to be more of us.'

Emanuel Lutchman, 26, had wrote before the sentencing that he had moved on from a 'radical Islamic ideology,' but after drawing a sentence twice as long as his lawyer had sought, became agitated.

'You think because I'm going to be incarcerated there aren't going to be more of us that rise up?' he said while shouting and swearing at U.S. District Judge Frank Geraci.

In response, Geraci increased Lutchman's supervised release after serving his time from 30 years to 50 years.

Lutchman pleaded guilty in August to conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

At the direction of a now-deceased recruiter for the Islamic State group in Syria, Lutchman plotted a New Year's machete attack at Rochester restaurant Merchant's Grill in 2015 (pictured)

Emanuel Lutchman is transported out of a Federal Building in August 2016 in Rochester, New York - he pleaded guilty in August to conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization

At the direction of a now-deceased Islamic State terrorist Abu Issa Al-Amriki in Syria, Lutchman planned a knife and machete attack inside Merchants Grill in Rochester on December  31, 2015, according to the plea agreement. The attack never happened.

The goal was to give the terror group an attack to claim and prove Lutchman worthy of joining the organization when he traveled overseas, court documents said.

Prosecutors say Al-Amriki told him to plan an attack on New Year's Eve and kill non-believers, or 'kuffar.' 

'Viewed in this context, it would be hard to overstate the danger that Lutchman presented,' Acting United States Attorney James Kennedy, Jr. said on Thursday.

The FBI used informants to uncover the plot, including one who went with Lutchman to a store two days before the planned attack. They bought two black ski masks, two knives, a machete, zip-ties, duct tape, ammonia and latex gloves.

Lutchman was a former gang member who converted to Islam while in prison for a 2006 robbery conviction and was influenced by other inmates' religious extremism

Lutchman was arrested the next day, after covering his face with a scarf and making a video in which he said: 'The blood that you spill of the Muslim overseas, we gonna spill the blood of the kuffar,' or non-believers.

In a pre-sentencing letter to the court, Lutchman called the plot 'twisted' and said his history of mental illness and 'abandonment issues' led him toward terrorism. 

Lutchman was a former gang member who converted to Islam while in prison for a 2006 robbery conviction and was influenced by other inmates' religious extremism, his lawyer said in court documents.

'I was never certain on this path I didn't really want to tread,' Lutchman wrote.

Geraci said Lutchman's behavior in court showed otherwise and that he still adheres to his old beliefs.

'Yes I do,' Lutchman responded. 'There's going to be more of us.' 

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