A Stockton man who believed he was supplying guns, cash and equipment to the Islamic State has admitted the charge in federal court. Ammaad Akhtar, 34, of Stockton, California, pleaded guilty on Friday, October 30, 2026 to attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, U.S. Attorney Eric Grant announced for the Eastern District of California. The plea closes the court phase that began with Akhtar's arrest in June 2025 — and it rests, according to court documents cited by the Justice Department, entirely on dealings Akhtar had with people who were in fact working for law enforcement.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of California (DOJ), Oct. 30, 2026
What Akhtar admitted, step by step
According to court documents summarised by the U.S. Attorney's Office, between February 2025 and June 2025 Akhtar, a citizen of the United States, attempted to provide funds, weapons and other equipment to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). He communicated online with an undercover officer whom he believed was a member of ISIS. In those conversations, prosecutors say, Akhtar voiced his support for ISIS and jihad, expressed a desire to travel overseas to join and fight with ISIS, and stated a desire to send guns and money to the group.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of California (DOJ), Oct. 30, 2026
In April 2025, the contact moved from words to money. During the investigation, Akhtar provided financial funding on multiple occasions. After a few payments, the online undercover officer told him ISIS had procured several guns with the money he had sent. Akhtar replied, in the words quoted in court documents, “May Allah destroy our enemies,” and affirmed that he would send more money that same day.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of California (DOJ), Oct. 30, 2026
On June 23, 2025, Akhtar met in person with an individual he believed was an ISIS associate but who was actually an undercover agent. He provided clothing, binoculars, $400 cash, two loaded guns and six additional magazines — and then swore bayat, a pledge of loyalty, to ISIS, according to court documents.
The violent talk recorded in court documents
The Justice Department's account goes beyond money and equipment. Akhtar also talked about planning acts of violence, including conducting an attack against a specific individual and an attack using homemade explosives. He said, in the words quoted by prosecutors, that he “want[s] to die in the cause of Allah fighting the kuffar [infidels]” and asked for instructions on how to make a homemade explosive device in order “to make a boom” at a populated event. No attack was carried out, and the people he was communicating with were law-enforcement-controlled contacts — a fact that sits at the centre of how this case was built.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of California (DOJ), Oct. 30, 2026
Who investigated, and who is prosecuting
The investigation was conducted by the FBI Field Offices in New York and Sacramento and the New York City Police Department — a cross-country pairing that reflects how the online contact that began the case was run. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Elliot Wong and Charles Campbell of the Eastern District of California, together with Trial Attorney Ryan D. White of the National Security Division's Counterterrorism Section, are prosecuting the case. The Justice Department's national Office of Public Affairs issued its own announcement of the same plea on Friday.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, Oct. 30, 2026
Background: why Stockton and the Central Valley watch cases like this
Stockton sits in San Joaquin County in California's Central Valley, on the Interstate 5 and Highway 99 corridors — a working city with one of the largest Sikh and Punjabi communities in the United States, centred on one of the oldest gurdwaras in the country. Cases that attach the words “terrorism” and “Stockton” to each other are felt locally precisely because the city's immigrant communities know that a single defendant's acts can cast a shadow in public debate far beyond one courtroom. The verified record here is narrow and specific: one man, one undercover investigation, one guilty plea. Nothing in the Justice Department's account alleges any involvement by any Stockton institution or community organisation.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of California (DOJ), Oct. 30, 2026
What “material support” means in this charge
Attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization is the federal charge used when a defendant is accused of trying to supply a listed group with money, weapons, equipment, personnel or services. Here the “support” prosecutors described was concrete and itemised: funding sent on multiple occasions in April 2025, and then, at the June 23 meeting, clothing, binoculars, $400 in cash, two loaded guns and six additional magazines. Because the recipients were undercover officers, no funds or weapons reached ISIS itself — the offence, as pleaded, is the attempt, made with the belief that the support was real.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, Oct. 30, 2026
What happens next
Akhtar is scheduled to be sentenced on February 26, 2027, by U.S. District Judge Dena Coggins. He faces a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The Justice Department notes that the actual sentence will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of the applicable statutory factors and the federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables — so the maximum is a ceiling, not a prediction. Until that hearing, Friday's plea is the last major step: liability is now admitted, and only the length of punishment remains for the court to decide.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of California (DOJ), Oct. 30, 2026