[PUBLISH] In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit

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No. 22-10419 ____________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus JONATHAN GUERRA BLANCO, a.k.a. Abu Zahra Al-Andalusi,

Defendant-Appellant.

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Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 1:20-cr-20245-RNS-1 ____________________ USCA11 Case: 22-10419 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 05/23/2024 Page: 2 of 29

2 Opinion of the Court 22-10419

Before JORDAN, LAGOA, and MARCUS, Circuit Judges. JORDAN, Circuit Judge: Jonathan Guerra Blanco appeals his 192-month sentence fol- lowing his guilty plea to attempting to provide material support to ISIS, a designated foreign terrorist organization, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2339B(a)(1). First, he contends that at sentencing the gov- ernment improperly used evidence obtained from testimony he had provided pursuant to a proffer agreement and argues that the district court erred in not holding an evidentiary hearing on the matter. Second, he challenges the application of a 12-point sen- tencing enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 3A1.4(a) for promoting a federal crime of terrorism. Third, he asserts that the district court erred by not applying a 3-level reduction for acceptance of respon- sibility from his maximum statutory sentence of 240 months. After a review of the record, and with the benefit of oral ar- gument, we affirm. I In early December of 2020, the government charged Mr. Guerra by information with one count of attempting to provide material support to ISIS, a designated foreign terrorist organiza- tion, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2339B(a)(1). Later that month he pled guilty and agreed to the government’s factual proffer. USCA11 Case: 22-10419 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 05/23/2024 Page: 3 of 29

22-10419 Opinion of the Court 3

A The facts set out below are taken from the factual proffer used to support Mr. Guerra’s guilty plea and the unobjected-to fac- tual narrative in the presentence investigation report. ISIS, or the “Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham,” is the infa- mous foreign terrorist organization responsible for countless ter- rorist attacks across the world. Mr. Guerra knew what ISIS stood for, and he also knew that the U.S. Secretary of State had designated ISIS as a foreign terrorist organization. Sometime between October of 2019 and September of 2020, Mr. Guerra ran two unofficial ISIS media networks primarily di- rected at Spanish speakers. One of those networks was called “Muntasir Media.” Mr. Guerra’s operation of the media networks involved the production and dissemination of ISIS propaganda, re- cruiting materials, and instructional guides for committing acts of terror. ISIS has relied more on these sorts of decentralized net- works due to significant losses in the past few years. Indeed, ISIS has said that the propaganda work on its behalf is just as valuable