Ohio man gets 20 years for soliciting murder of U.S. military members

(Reuters) - An Ohio man who professed support for the Islamic State militant group was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Wednesday for soliciting the murder of U.S. military personnel, federal prosecutors said.

Terrence McNeil, 24, of Akron, Ohio, had pleaded guilty in April to five counts of solicitation to commit a crime of violence and five counts of making threatening interstate communications.

McNeil was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Akron, according to court records.

In a statement, the Justice Department said McNeil spread Islamic State's violent rhetoric, circulated information about U.S. military personnel, and explicitly called for them to be killed.

According to prosecutors, in 2015 McNeil posted online "kill lists" with the names and addresses of 100 U.S. military members and asked others to murder them on behalf of Islamic State, to which he had professed support on social media.

"Kill them in their own lands, behead them in their own homes, stab them to death as they walk their streets thinking that they are safe," one of his online posts read, according to the Justice Department's statement.

McNeil also researched the online prices of firearms for sale and possessed detailed bomb-making instructions, the statement said.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)