19-year-old Shannon Maureen Conley of Colorado has been sentenced to 48 months in a federal prison for trying to give material aid to the Islamic State. Ms. Conley was caught last year as she tried to board a plane heading to Syria via Turkey. Once there she planned to marry a 32-year-old Tunisian militant whom she had met online.

Ms. Conley claims she did not know the truth about the Islamic State until she was arrested. The Islam scholars she communicated with online had presented her with a distorted image of jihad. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone. It was all about defending Muslims,” said Ms. Conley. The teenager had planned on using her nursing aide certificate to help wounded Syrians.

Since her incarceration, she has read the entire Quran and now feels more confident about her understanding of the Islamic faith. She now desires to be a “catalyst of good”. “I do not believe I am a threat to society and I ask you to allow me to prove it,” she pleaded to the judge.

Ms. Conley’s parents begged the judge to go easy on their daughter. Yet U.S. District Judge Raymond P. Moore was not convinced of the girl’s sincerity. “This is not a serious offense but an extremely serious offense. I need to send a message,” said Moore. The parents have since released a statement online criticizing the courts for using their daughter to discourage other Americans from joining terrorist groups.

Ms. Conley has been very cooperative with the authorities since her arrest. However, Federal public defender Robert Pepin described Ms. Conley has being easily influenced by others. In a matter of months, Ms. Conley almost agreed to marry three different men. She is “pathologically naïve,” said Pepin.

The psychiatric report concluded that Ms. Conley was neither a terrorist nor mentally insane. “I’m not saying that her decisions were all a product of mental illness,” said Judge Moore. “But she’s a bit of a mess.”

The prosecution was concerned about the speed and ease with which Ms. Conley radically changed her personal views. Pepin noted that Shannon Conley has changed her name over three times (it is presently Amatullah meaning “female servant of Allah”) since she converted to Islam three years ago.

During the sentencing on Friday, Judge Moore said, “She doesn’t get it.” Indeed, in her letters, Ms. Conley still refers to the ISIS fighter whom she intended to marry as a “good man.”

Ms. Conley is one of nearly 150 American who have joined or tried to join terrorist groups abroad.