BIZARRE: Stay-at-Home Mom Accused of Sending $30K to Terrorist to Fund Attacks Against Israelis

A 37-year-old stay-at-home mom was arrested for transferring roughly $30,000 via 80 cryptocurrency transactions to a Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighter to help him plan and carry out attacks against Israelis.

If convicted, Catherine Beth Washburn of Irondequoit, N.Y., faces up to 20 years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000.

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The mother of two has expressed intense hatred of Jews and Israel and belongs to the Direct Action Movement for Palestinian Liberation. The group, as its name suggests, eschews peaceful protests in favor of “direct action,” i.e., property destruction and sabotage of businesses that are associated with Israel.

Investigators from the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force discovered messages sent between Washburn and an alleged PIJ fighter. During these exchanges, she expressed her intense hatred of Jews and Israel, saying she hated Jews “very much” and wished Israel “would disappear.”

“I wish every day were Oct. 7th,” she also wrote. “If I lived in Gaza, I would fight alongside the resistance.”

In one particular message, she wrote that she gets “excited every time I see news of the killing of an occupation soldier.”

The United States government has designated PIJ as a foreign terrorist organization, making it a crime to provide aid and support to any member of the terror group.

Washburn went to “great lengths” to support acts of terror as a result of “her self-described hate of Israel and Jewish people,” said U.S. Attorney Michael DiGiacomo.

“This individual, as alleged in the criminal complaint, provided money to a foreign terrorist organization engaged in acts of violence,” said FBI Counterterrorism Division Acting Assistant Director Coult Markovsky. “The FBI is committed to cutting off funding to terrorist groups and will continue to work side-by-side with our Justice Department partners to make sure anyone who engages in terrorism or provides assistance to such organizations is held fully accountable in our justice system.”

Old social media posts show photos of her with her family in which she appears without a hijab. It’s unclear whether she converted to Islam, when she started wearing a hijab, and when and how she became radicalized.