Jessica Bowie, 35, of Albany, was arrested by the FBI on Wednesday and charged with attempting to provide material support to ISIS after she took what she believed was a live explosive device from federal informants and said she wanted to bomb the New York State Capitol, prosecutors said. Agents grabbed her seconds after she stepped out of the car where the handoff happened.
The arrest went down near a McDonald’s in Albany. The explosive was inert, built to look real but incapable of going off. Bowie was also carrying a gun, a magazine and ammunition when agents moved in; those were inert too. According to a criminal complaint, the entire meeting had been arranged and secretly filmed by the FBI, and the people she thought were fellow believers were confidential sources.
She told informants she wanted the senators dead
Bowie was blunt about what she wanted to do. “We definitely want to make sure the senators get killed for sure,” she told an informant on August 5, court filings say. “That’s the most important part.”
Her stated goal went beyond killing people. She told sources she wanted to “destroy as much of the building as possible and kill the senators while they are meeting.” She said she wanted lawmakers to “lose a lot of important documents as well” and wanted the attack to “have a affect [sic] on the American system.” She had learned the Capitol could hold as many as 200 people, and she said she hoped to kill at least half of them.
The Capitol sits on a hill above downtown Albany. It houses Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office and the chambers where the state Senate and Assembly meet. Lawmakers are typically in session from January through mid-June. The 2026 session ended in early June and the legislature is not due back until January, and prosecutors say Bowie does not appear to have known the senators she talked about killing were not in the building.
The plan involved a nail bomb and a DoorDash disguise
The device was meant to be a nail bomb, packed with long nails to act as shrapnel. Prosecutors say informants working for the FBI even gave her money to buy the ingredients, and she picked up materials at a hardware store. On Wednesday she paid the sources $150 for the gun, a magazine and ammunition, took the fake bomb from them, and was walked through how to use both before she left the car. She handed over a further $200 toward more devices.
To get the bomb inside, Bowie talked about hiding it in a DoorDash delivery bag and dressing like a food courier so she could blend in walking up to the building. The gun had a purpose too. She arranged to buy the firearm and ammunition so she could fire at police or security if anyone tried to stop her, according to the complaint.
She also weighed a second target. Bowie discussed hitting Albany City Hall but decided the State Capitol was a “better” target and locked in on it.
She cased the building at least five times
This was not a spur-of-the-moment idea. Prosecutors say Bowie visited the Capitol five times between July 21 and August 9 to do physical surveillance, snapping dozens of photos of the building and the area around it and sending the images to an informant. She also confirmed her target on an aerial photograph of the Capitol that a source sent her.
One image included in the complaint shows her buying what she believed were bomb-making materials at a Home Depot while dressed in a full black hood and gown with gloves, according to the Times Union. The complaint lays out the hardware store purchases piece by piece as part of the plan to build the device.
Investigators say she pledged allegiance to ISIS on tape
Court documents say Bowie converted to Islam about five years ago and became radicalized online. She recorded audio messages in both English and Arabic swearing allegiance to the leader of ISIS, said Craig Tremaroli, the FBI special agent in charge of the Albany field office.
She ran several social media accounts under an Islamic name, “Aisha Saif,” prosecutors say. The accounts kept getting suspended for violating platform rules, so she made new ones. FBI counterterrorism agents traced a number of accounts back to her that posted support for terrorism from May through July.
Some of what she allegedly wrote is chilling in its own words. On May 28, using the username “nusaybahsaif,” she told another user in Arabic, “Praise be to Allah for September 11th,” and “When I can migrate, I will poison these infidels,” according to the complaint. She told informants she went from “a little girl waving an American flag after 9/11” to someone who now had stickers of the falling towers.
The Capitol was only supposed to be the start
Bowie’s plans did not stop at Albany. She told an informant she wanted to bomb the Capitol “in a way I could get away with and hop on a plane after,” then flee to ISIS-controlled territory in Syria to join others there.
After that, she wanted to come back and do more. She spoke about a New Year’s Eve attack in Times Square and also raised the idea of targeting the White House and the president, according to prosecutors. The Capitol bombing, in her telling, was step one.
The arrest came just weeks before the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, a date she referenced more than once in her own messages.
How the FBI got to her
The case ran from July 16 through August 19, according to the affidavit. By mid-July, investigators say, they had seen she wanted to carry out an attack on the Capitol. From there she was communicating with at least one confidential source posing as an ISIS facilitator.
She asked that source for help learning how to make explosives. Two other sources met with her in Albany this month, including the recorded car meeting on August 5 where she reaffirmed she wanted to bomb the Capitol. The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in Albany made the arrest on August 19.
After she was taken in, Bowie told agents she expected to go to prison. “There’s no helping me, you guys know enough,” she said, according to an FBI agent’s account of the interview.
The charge and what comes next
Bowie faces one count of attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. “As alleged, Bowie plotted to deploy an explosive device at the New York State Capitol, intending to kill public officials and to destroy as much of the building as possible before fleeing to ISIS-controlled territory in Syria,” said John A. Eisenberg, the assistant attorney general for national security, in the Justice Department statement.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney John A. Sarcone III, the top federal prosecutor in Albany, told a news conference on Thursday that the plot was “an attack on democracy itself and one we will not tolerate.” The charge carries a maximum of 20 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000 and a lifetime of supervised release. It is an accusation, and Bowie is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Bowie made her initial appearance on Thursday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel J. Stewart, who appointed the federal public defender’s office and ordered her detained pending further proceedings. No plea has been entered; a defendant does not plead to a criminal complaint. The Federal Defenders office in Albany, which is representing her, declined to comment.
Gov. Hochul’s office said the state moved earlier this year to tighten security across state government, including at the Capitol, as threats against public officials have climbed nationally. “While there is no immediate threat at this time, we will continue working closely with our law enforcement partners to protect New Yorkers and keep our communities safe,” her office said.
