2C:38-5. Soliciting or providing material support or resources for terrorism

5. Soliciting or Providing Material Support or Resources for Terrorism.

a. As used in this section:

"Charitable organization" means: (1) any person determined by the federal Internal Revenue Service to be a tax exempt organization pursuant to section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, 26 U.S.C. s.501(c)(3); or

(2) any person who is, or holds himself out to be, established for any benevolent, philanthropic, humane, social welfare, public health, or other eleemosynary purpose, or for the benefit of law enforcement personnel, firefighters or other persons who protect the public safety, or any person who in any manner employs a charitable appeal as the basis of any solicitation, or an appeal which has a tendency to suggest there is a charitable purpose to any such solicitation.

"Charitable purpose" means: (1) any purpose described in section 501 (c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, 26 U.S.C. s.501(c)(3); or (2) any benevolent, philanthropic, humane, social welfare, public health, or other eleemosynary objective, or an objective that benefits law enforcement personnel, firefighters, or other persons who protect the public safety.

"Material support or resources" means: (1) services or assistance with knowledge or purpose that the services or assistance will be used in preparing for or carrying out an act of terrorism in violation of section 2 of P.L.2002, c.26 (C.2C:38-2);

(2) currency, financial securities or other monetary instruments, financial services, lodging, training, safehouses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel, including but not limited to persons recruited to participate directly or indirectly in a terrorist organization, transportation and other physical assets or anything of value; or

(3) any chemical weapon, or any biological agent, toxin, vector or delivery system for use as a weapon, or any nuclear or radiological device, as defined in subsection c. of section 3 of P.L.2002, c.26 (C.2C:38-3).

"Professional fund raiser" means any person who for compensation performs for a charitable organization any service in connection with which contributions are or will be solicited in this State by that compensated person or by any compensated person he employs, procures, or engages, directly or indirectly to solicit contributions. A bona fide salaried officer, employee, or volunteer of a charitable organization shall not be deemed to be a professional fund raiser. No attorney, accountant or banker who advises a person to make a charitable contribution during the course of rendering professional services to that person shall be deemed, as a result of that advice, to be a professional fund raiser.

b. (1) It shall be unlawful for any person, charitable organization or professional fund raiser to solicit, transport or otherwise provide material support or resources with the purpose or knowledge that such material support or resources will be used, in whole or in part, to aid, plan, prepare or carry out an act of terrorism in violation of section 2 of P.L.2002, c.26 (C.2C:38-2) or with the purpose or knowledge that such material support or resources are to be given, in whole or in part, to a person or an organization that has committed or has the purpose to commit or has threatened to commit an act of terrorism in violation of section 2 of P.L.2002, c.26 (C.2C:38-2).

(2) It shall be unlawful for any person, charitable organization or professional fund raiser to solicit, transport or otherwise provide material support or resources to or on behalf of a person or an organization that is designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the United States Secretary of State pursuant to 8 U.S.C. s.1189. It shall not be a defense to a prosecution for a violation of this section that the actor did not know that the person or organization is designated as a foreign terrorist organization.

c. A person who violates the provisions of subsection b. of this section shall be guilty of a crime of the first degree if the act of terrorism in violation of section 2 of P.L.2002, c.26 (C.2C:38-2) results in death. Otherwise, it is a crime of the second degree.

L.2002,c.26,s.5; amended 2003, c.50.