Jessica Bowie, a 35-year-old Albany, New York woman, made her first appearance in a federal courtroom on Thursday to face charges stemming from a planned terror attack on the New York State Capitol. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg told the media last week that Bowie “plotted to deploy an explosive device at the New York State Capitol, intending to kill public officials” before fleeing to ISIS-held territory in Syria. Operations Director Matt Fodor of the FBI’s National Security Branch further added that Bowie “swore allegiance to ISIS and wanted to follow up with additional horrific acts of terrorism.”
Using the name “Aisha Saif,” Bowie interacted online with an FBI operative posing as an ISIS militant. Before her arrest on Wednesday, Bowie, dressed in a full niqab, conducted surveillance for two weeks around the state capitol, including taking pictures of government buildings and state senators. “I want to destroy as much of the building as possible and kill the senators while they are meeting,” Bowie wrote to the FBI informant on July 29th. At a later meeting with the informant, Bowie expressed a desire to acquire a firearm so that she could kill “at least half” of the New York State Senate.
After her surveillance period, Bowie allegedly purchased around $200 worth of items from Home Depot, including nails to be used as shrapnel in a homemade bomb. Via her messaging with the main FBI informant, prosecutors have extensive evidence that online radicalization and strong hatred of the United States inspired Bowie’s plot. “Praise be to Allah for September 11th,” Bowie wrote online. The accused terrorist similarly claimed that she desired to “poison these infidels.” A self-recorded video pledging an oath of allegiance to ISIS was disseminated online by Bowie herself before her arrest on August 19th.
It is believed that Bowie converted to Islam sometime around 2021. Since that time, she has maintained several anti-American and extremist social media accounts, some of which openly supported Islamic terrorist groups as recently as May and July. Voter registration records prove that Bowie was a registered Democrat in 2008 before becoming an independent while living in Schenectady in 2020.
According to the primary FBI informant in the case, Bowie admitted to significant radicalization, saying that she went from “a little girl waving an American flag after 9/11 to now having stickers of the falling towers.” Such comments speak towards online radicalization, with Bowie likely consuming hours upon hours of militant jihadist and possibly leftist anti-American propaganda. Bowie’s past voting history, plus her praise for the 9/11 attacks, calls to mind far-left influencer Hasan Piker, who has not only claimed that the United States “deserved” 9/11, but who also recently hung a framed picture of the Twin Towers burning in his primary streaming studio.
An exclusive article published in the New York Post alleges that, between January and July of this year, Bowie terrorized her roommates while also being knee-deep in her jihadist plot to attack New York’s state government. Bowie’s former roommates, Ivory Thomas and Zephyr Brennan, claim that Bowie “blasted” Islamic prayers and other religious music at all hours of the night, and when confronted, who would either resort to violence or threaten to blow up their shared Hudson Avenue home. Brennan informed the Post that Bowie never took off her niqab, whether inside the apartment or not. Meanwhile, Thomas, 23, claims that she called the Albany police seven different times between January and July to report Bowie’s abusive behavior, including multiple death threats and one warning about the possibility of poisoning Thomas’s food. The Albany city police did little to nothing to stop Bowie, Thomas says. “She tortured me for like six, seven months,” Thomas claims. Bowie’s roommates even contacted a child protective agency after Bowie’s 11-year-old son, who did not live with his mother at the Hudson Avenue address, was caught using marijuana and abusing Thomas’s pet cat. Bowie is believed to be the mother of two children.
In May, when Bowie’s landlord offered to move her to an apartment with fellow Muslims, the unnamed tenants refused, stating that Bowie was infamous at Albany’s Masjid As-Salam Mosque because of her quick temper and ill-humor. In another twist, Brennan knew Bowie before her conversion to Islam, claiming that she was once a celebrated local poet, writer, and artist prior to developing a heroin addiction. Brennan, who only realized that his roommate was the same woman he’d met at various art shows between 2016 and 2019 after she “deadnamed” him (Brennan is a MtF transsexual), told the Post that Bowie is a diagnosed schizophrenic.
Bowie was eventually evicted from the Hudson Avenue apartment after failing to pay rent.
If convicted, Bowie faces up to 20 years in prison and a supervised release program for the remainder of her life.
