US: Florida mall bomb plotter deserves 20 years in prison

Prosecutors said in a Miami court filing Tuesday that Vicente Adolfo Solano should get the maximum prison term for attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Solano’s sentencing is set Friday. His lawyers seek leniency. (Shutterstock)

MIAMI — Federal prosecutors say a Honduran man deserves 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to plotting to detonate a bomb in a Florida mall food court in support of the Islamic State extremist group.

Prosecutors said in a Miami court filing Tuesday that Vicente Adolfo Solano should get the maximum prison term for attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Solano’s sentencing is set Friday. His lawyers seek leniency.

The FBI says the 53-year-old Solano wanted to detonate a bomb last October at the Dolphin Mall near Miami but was actually working with undercover FBI operatives who gave him a fake bomb before his arrest.

Despite Solano’s claims of Islamic State sympathies, the FBI says no links to terrorist groups were found. Solano never had real explosives.