LOS ANGELES — A Pennsylvania woman accused of plotting to kill a Swedish cartoonist who depicted the prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog appears set to change her plea to guilty.
Colleen LaRose, 47, pleaded not guilty in March to charges including conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy to kill in a foreign country. A court document released Friday shows she is set to change her plea at a hearing in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
In Pennsburg, where she lived 35 miles north of Philadelphia, LaRose did not publicly profess faith in Islam, even to her live-in boyfriend. But online, authorities say, she went under the name “Jihad Jane” and “Fatima LaRose,” posed for her MySpace photo in a burka and wrote about her desire to become a martyr for Islam.
She traveled to Europe in August 2009, allegedly with the intent to find and assassinate cartoonist Lars Vilks. She took her boyfriend’s passport with the intent of providing it to militants, according to the indictment.
The FBI arrested LaRose in October 2009. The case did not become public until March when the indictment against her was unsealed, following the arrest of seven other people in Ireland in connection with a suspected plot to assassinate Vilks.
Attorneys representing LaRose could not be reached for comment Saturday.
A second American woman, Jamie Paulin-Ramirez of Leadville, was among those arrested last year in Ireland. She was released by Irish authorities and returned voluntarily to the United States, where she was arrested and charged.
