Zachary Adam Chesser (born December 22, 1989) is an American convicted in 2010 for aiding al-Shabaab, which is aligned with al-Qaeda, and has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. After pleading guilty, Chesser was sentenced in federal court on February 24, 2011 to 25 years in prison. He is also known for his alleged threats to South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone for depicting Muhammad in an episode of that series. Early life and marriage Chesser was born in Charlottesville, Virginia to Barbara Katenbrink Chesser, a lawyer and prosecutor, and David Chesser. His parents divorced. Chesser moved to Fairfax County, Northern Virginia by the time he was in middle school. He was selected for the Gifted and Talented program at Kilmer Middle School. He graduated from Oakton High School in 2008. Chesser was known as an athlete, participating in the Oakton's football, basketball and crew teams. His yearbook profile said: "As the only Caucasian member of the break-dancing club, senior Chesser was not intimidated by being the only non-Asian." After high school, in 2008, Chesser enrolled at George Mason University in Fairfax County, Virginia, dropping out after one semester. In 2009, he married Proscovia Nzabanita, a Ugandan Muslim woman, and they had a son, Talhah. (Nzabanita's mother Cecilia is Roman Catholic.) Since Chesser's incarceration, his mother Barbara and Barbara's life partner Stacy Anderson, also a lawyer, have had custody of his son against Chesser and Nzabanita's wishes. His wife Nzabanita was deported from the United States. He worked briefly as a caretaker at the Islamic Center of Northern Virginia in Fairfax. Pursuit of Islamic activism Chesser told FBI agents he became interested in Islam in July 2008. High school friends said his interest seemed to start when he began dating a Muslim girl. Sources disagree about whether he converted. Chesser used online media to disseminate his views, catching the attention of Jarret Brachman, a terrorism scholar, who engaged Chesser in email correspondence. In his 2008 book on terrorism, Brachman had coined the term "jihobbyist" for people such as Chesser, who are fascinated by Islam or jihad but were not members of recognized terrorist organizations. By 2010, Chesser had created a YouTube account called LearnTeachFightDie, and a website called the mujhidblog.com. He had e-mail correspondence with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American Muslim cleric hiding in Yemen. United States officials have alleged that the latter has encouraged