A North Carolina man who wanted to create an ISIS in the U.S. has been sentenced to life in prison for actively plotting "the mass killing of innocent people," the Department of Justice announced Tuesday.

Justin Nojan Sullivan, 21, of Morganton, pleaded guilty last fall to the charge that he attempted "to commit an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries, in support" of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

U.S. Attorney Jill Rose, who is based in the Western district of North Carolina, said Sullivan aimed to carry out an attack on behalf of ISIS that was "designed to inflict maximum casualties and maximum pain."

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“Sullivan was actively planning the mass killing of innocent people with an attack designed to inflict maximum casualties and maximum pain in the name of ISIS, a sworn enemy of our nation," Rose said in a statement.

Rose said Sullivan alerted a prominent ISIS member who helps with online recruitment that he wished to create an Islamic State branch in the country.

"Sullivan’s allegiance to ISIS did not stop there. He also planned to film and send a video of his deadly attack to now-deceased Junaid Hussain, a prominent ISIS member based in Syria, and further expressed his wish to create a new branch of the so-called Islamic State in the United States," Rose continued.

Court documents detailed how Sullivan began to access and download ISIS propaganda videos online as late as September 2014, and voicing his support for the terrorist organization.

Sullivan at one point told an FBI undercover employee (UCE) about his attack plans over social media, while attempting to recruit the agent to join him in his efforts.

In the summer of 2015, his parents opened one of his packages, which contained a gun silencer. Sullivan then "offered to compensate the UCE to kill them," according to the Justice Department.