Providing material support or resources to a terrorist organization; 18 USC § 2339B; Whether “translation services” are covered by the statute; Purported “intrinsic acts” evidence; Applicability of FRE 404(1)(b); Applicability of FRE 405; Denial of a request to stipulate; Allowing an FBI agent to use a pseudonym at trial; Jury instructions; Sentencing; Procedural reasonableness; Enhancement for “federal crime[s] of terrorism” (USSG § 3A1.4); Substantive reasonableness

The court held that § 2339B (knowingly providing material support to a known terrorist organization) covered defendant-Carpenter’s actions where translating videos from Arabic into English furthered ISIS’s “propaganda mission,” and translation services “are cut from the same cloth as other ‘expert’ services[.]” Carpenter founded an organization to support ISIS, Ahlud-Tawhid Publications (ATP), which translated and published ISIS propaganda. He would translate ISIS materials into English, wrote original material for ATP, and established a group secure-messaging platform. A jury convicted him of knowingly providing material support to a known terrorist organization. Carpenter claimed that the indictment and the statute did not cover his conduct. The court disagreed, holding that translation “work fits within the statute’s prohibition on providing ‘any . . . service’ to a terrorist organization.” The Supreme Court has explained that “‘service’ encompasses ‘concerted activity’ in support of another. That is just what Carpenter did in helping ISIS to make its propaganda videos available to those who speak only English.” Further, the statute provided him “with all the notice a reasonable person would need to know that this support to a foreign terrorist organization would violate the law.” The court also rejected his evidentiary challenges. It agreed with the district court’s ruling that “evidence of Carpenter’s role in ATP, ATP’s work product, and [his] interaction with ISIS’s work product” constituted “intrinsic acts,” and also complied with FRE 403. Further, the government was not required to provide notice of intent to show screenshots of Carpenter's WhatsApp messages where they were introduced to counter his entrapment defense. The court also declined to extend a defendant’s right to stipulate to cover Carpenter’s offer to stipulate that he knew ISIS was a terrorist organization. In addition, it held that the district court did not err by allowing an FBI agent to use a pseudonym at trial where Carpenter failed to show that disclosing the agent’s identity would aid his defense. Next, the court found no abuse of discretion in the district court’s declining to give a jury instruction “about the proper way to assess bad acts evidence” where the district court never actually permitted the introduction of such evidence. And the district court did not err in giving a Allen charge using the Sixth Circuit pattern jury instruction. Lastly, the court rejected his procedural and substantive challenges to his sentence, concluding the district court properly applied the § 3A1.4 enhancement and his 240-month sentence “was within the Guidelines range. While lengthy, the term of supervised release, 20 years, also is well within the statutory authorization.” Affirmed.