CINCINNATI -- A federal appeals court rejected Christopher Lee Cornell's appeal of his sentence for plotting to attack the U.S. Capitol.
Cornell, of Green Township, was sentenced last year to 30 years in prison and lifetime probation after prison on charges including attempted murder of U.S. officials and employees.
He filed a notice of a planned appeal shortly after the sentencing. However, the government argued that Cornell had given up his right to appeal the sentence under the terms of his plea deal. The appeals court judges agreed and dismissed Cornell's appeal last week, court records show.
Cornell had planned to attack the Capitol during then-President Barack Obama's State of the Union address to support ISIS. A video shows Cornell plotting an attack, saying he wanted to target government officials and not hurt women or children.
"I say as soon as we get ready to attack, we set the explosives off at a specific time, like five minutes beforehand, so it goes 'bang, bang, bang' and we go straight in," he says in the video.
Authorities arrested Cornell before he ever carried out an attack.
Since then, Cornell has rejected "radical Islam," according to his former attorneys. They wrote that he was "a troubled young man who lost his way through reading ISIS propaganda online."
