The man who opened fire in a classroom at Virginia’s Old Dominion University completed a drug treatment program that allowed him early release from federal prison, according to prison records reviewed by The Associated Press. Mohamed Bailor Jalloh was released in December 2024—about 2½ years earlier than scheduled—even though he had pleaded guilty in 2017 to providing material support to the Islamic State group.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons confirmed Jalloh’s December 2024 release, saying it occurred because of a loophole in a provision that can allow some inmates to shave time off their sentences by completing a substance abuse treatment program. The bureau told the AP that it has since closed the loophole and changed policies to bar inmates with terrorism-related convictions from receiving time credit through the program.
In a separate explanation, the Bureau of Prisons said its previous attempts to update a list of excluded offenses had stalled in negotiations with a union representing correctional workers. The bureau said that since canceling the union contract last year, “not one inmate with terrorism related charges has received time credit” for completing the drug treatment program.
A prison system program known as RDAP is typically available only to inmates with drug-related charges, the report said. Under federal law as described by the AP, violent offenders aren’t eligible for sentence reductions through the prison system’s drug treatment program, which created questions about why Jalloh, whose terrorism conviction should have disqualified him, received early release.
Union official and former correctional worker Jose Rojas pushed back on the Bureau of Prisons’ explanation about the stalled negotiations, saying in remarks provided to the AP that “It’s highly insulting to put the blame on the union. We have no say so in that.”
On Thursday’s attack at ODU, authorities said ROTC students subdued and killed Jalloh. The AP reported that the shooting killed one person and wounded two others.
The Bureau of Prisons said Jalloh had been incarcerated at a low-security federal prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania, before being transferred in August 2024 to a residential reentry center, or halfway house, in the Baltimore area. Jalloh was released from federal custody on Dec. 23, 2024, the bureau said.
The AP reported that Jalloh was on probation—called supervised release in the federal system—when he attacked Old Dominion on Thursday, and that based on his release date the supervised release term would have run into 2029. A probation officer visited Jalloh’s Sterling, Virginia, home every six months and was last there in November, according to a law enforcement affidavit filed Friday against a man charged with supplying a gun to Jalloh.
The report also detailed the criminal case that led to Jalloh’s incarceration. It said that in October 2016, during a three-month FBI sting operation, Jalloh—then 26—confessed to an undercover agent that he was thinking about carrying out an attack similar to the 2009 shootings at Fort Hood, which left 13 people dead. The AP reported that authorities launched the operation after Jalloh made contact with Islamic State members in Africa earlier that year.
The AP said that in the course of the sting, Jalloh told the informant that the Islamic State group had asked whether he wanted to participate in an attack. It said he tried to donate $500, but that the money went to an account controlled by the FBI, according to court documents. The report said Jalloh also tried to buy an AR-15 assault rifle from a Virginia gun store but was turned away for lacking proper paperwork, then returned the next day to buy a different assault rifle that prosecutors said was rendered inoperable before he left the store.
The Justice Department sought a 20-year sentence in 2017, the AP reported, citing Jalloh’s multiple attempts to join the Islamic State group and his attempts to acquire a gun for what prosecutors described as a murder plot. Prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum that by putting the idea of the plot into religious terms, and suggesting that murdering members of the U.S. military would be a path to heaven, Jalloh showed strong commitment to the Islamic State group’s deadly ideology.
Jalloh’s lawyers asked for a sentence of 6½ years and requested that he be placed in a facility providing residential drug treatment for inmates with addiction and substance abuse issues, according to the report. U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady sentenced him to 11 years in prison, and the AP said the judge also ordered treatment-related requirements and evaluation for the federal prison system’s residential drug program.
Elected officials and others questioned how someone with ties to the Islamic State group was able to carry out the attack. U.S. Rep. Jen Kiggans, who represents the congressional district neighboring the university, wrote on Facebook that “The horrific tragedy that occurred today on ODU’s campus never should have happened,” the AP reported.
The report said little was publicly known about Jalloh, including that he was a naturalized citizen from Sierra Leone and that the Virginia Army National Guard confirmed he served from 2009 until 2015. In a letter to the judge presiding over his sentencing, the AP reported that Jalloh wrote, “I feel deep regret in having been driven by my emotions rather than my intellect and becoming involved with such an evil organization. … I reject and deplore terrorism and any groups associated with it, especially ISIL.”
The AP said the letter remains under seal, but that Jalloh’s lawyer included excerpts in a sentencing memorandum, including statements about drug use and an effort to describe his personal struggles. The AP reported that Jalloh wrote, “The pain I felt internally was unbearable, and drugs and alcohol were the only things that took that pain away,” and that he started doing marijuana, coke and mushrooms “using one of them at least on a daily basis” to address pain and fill “the void I felt internally.”
Riddle reported from Montgomery, Alabama. Associated Press reporter Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.