Suburban Chicago Man Sentenced to 27 Years in Federal Prison for Attempting To Detonate Explosive Device in Downtown Chicago

CHICAGO - A suburban Chicago man was sentenced today to 27 years in federal prison for attempting to detonate an explosive device at a bar in downtown Chicago.

ADEL DAOUD, 30, of Hillside, Ill., attempted to detonate what he thought was a 1,000-pound car bomb at a bar in the downtown Loop neighborhood of Chicago on Sept. 14, 2012. Prior to the attack, Daoud advocated for violent jihad and expressed an interest in working with operational terrorists. He researched and created a list of potential Chicago-area targets, which included movie theaters, bars, a suburban Chicago mall, and military recruiting centers. Unbeknownst to Daoud, the explosive device at the Loop bar was inert and had been constructed by the FBI, which was investigating Daoud in an undercover capacity. Daoud was arrested outside the bar after twice attempting to detonate the purported bomb.

Daoud was originally sentenced in 2019 to 16 years in federal prison. The U.S. Attorney's Office successfully appealed the original sentence to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which ordered the new sentencing hearing. Today, U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly sentenced Daoud to 27 years in prison and ordered that it be followed by a lifetime of court-supervised release.

The new sentence was announced by Morris Pasqual, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Matthew G. Olsen, Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the Justice Department, and Lucas Rothaar, Acting Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI. The government was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Barry Jonas and Tiffany Ardam of the Northern District of Illinois, and Trial Attorneys Bridget Behling and Kevin Nunnally of the National Security Division's Counterterrorism Section.

The attempted bombing was one of three cases against Daoud to be resolved today as part of the new sentencing order. While he was jailed for attempting to detonate the bomb, Daoud solicited his cellmate to arrange for a violent gang member to murder the FBI agent who had worked undercover to investigate Daoud. The murder-for-hire plot was not carried out, and the FBI agent was not injured. The third case against Daoud involved a violent assault on a fellow jail inmate in 2015. While incarcerated at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago, Daoud attacked an inmate who had drawn what Daoud felt was an insulting picture of the prophet Mohammad. The inmate suffered lacerations on his head and a bite mark on an arm.