A former Army soldier from Stow has been sentenced to 14 years in prison, the U.S. Department of Justice stated in a news release Friday.
Cole Bridges, also known as Cole Gonzales, 24, pleaded guilty to terrorism charges on June 14, 2023. He was accused of attempting to assist the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) to attack and kill U.S. soldiers in the Middle East.
His prison sentence will be followed by 10 years of supervised release.
According to court documents, Bridges joined the Army in September 2019 and was based in Fort Stewart, Georgia. Before joining, beginning in at least 2019, Bridges began reading online propaganda promoting jihadists and their violent ideology, and began to express support for ISIS and jihad on social media, the news release stated.
About one year after joining the Army, Bridges began communicating with an FBI investigator who was posing as an ISIS supporter in contact with ISIS fighters in the Middle East.
During these communications, Bridges expressed his frustration with the U.S. military and his desire to aid ISIS. Bridges, a private first class who was assigned as an infantry cavalry scout, provided training and guidance to purported ISIS fighters who were planning attacks, including advice about potential targets in New York City. Bridges also provided the investigator with portions of a U.S. Army training manual and guidance about military combat tactics.
Bridges also provided the undercover investigator with portions of a U.S. Army training manual and guidance about military combat tactics, with the understanding that the materials would be used by ISIS in future attack planning.
Around December 2020, Bridges began to supply the undercover investigator with instructions on how to attack U.S. forces in the Middle East. Among other things, Bridges diagrammed specific military maneuvers intended to help ISIS fighters maximize the lethality of future attacks. Bridges also provided advice about the best way to fortify an ISIS encampment to ambush U.S. Special Forces, including by wiring certain buildings with explosives to kill the U.S. troops.
Then, in January 2021, Bridges shared a video of himself in his U.S. Army body armor standing in front of a flag often used by ISIS fighters and making a gesture symbolic of support for ISIS. About a week later, Bridges sent a second video in which Bridges, using a voice manipulator, narrated a propaganda speech in support of the anticipated ambush by ISIS on U.S. troops.
According to reporting by the Beacon Journal in 2021, Bridges lived with part of his family in Stow for a couple of months after he graduated from high school in another state. A family member said he spent only a couple of months in Stow living at his mother’s and stepfather’s and working at a pizza shop.
His mother and brothers previously lived in Clarksville, Tennessee, and his father lived in Georgia; his stepfather wanted to move to Stow to be near a daughter from a previous marriage.
Bridges sometimes used his mother's maiden name, Gonzales.
Some extended family members told the Beacon Journal in 2021 they were unaware of Bridges’ apparent conversion to Islam and stunned by allegations he would support Islamic State extremists.
The FBI Washington, Atlanta, and Cleveland field offices investigated the case, with assistance provided by U.S. Army Counterintelligence, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia, Air Force Office of Special Investigations, U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command and U.S. Army Third Infantry Division.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sam Adelsberg and Matthew Hellman for the Southern District of New York prosecuted the case, with assistance from trial attorney Michael Dittoe of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: US Army soldier from Stow sentenced to 14 years in prison on federal terrorism charges
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