A man who authorities said had planned a mass shooting at a Virginia church was sentenced to 25 years in prison this week, federal prosecutors said.

The man, Rui Jiang, 36, of Falls Church, Virginia, was convicted at his trial in March of making threats online, bringing firearms to a religious service and obstructing congregants’ free exercise of religious beliefs.

In a news release after the sentencing Wednesday, Erik S. Siebert, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said that Jiang entered “a church during a religious service armed with the intent to murder innocent parishioners.”

According to prosecutors, Jiang was carrying a semiautomatic handgun, two magazines of ammunition and two knives when he went to the Park Valley Church in Haymarket, Virginia, on Sept. 24, 2023.

There were about 1,000 people in the church when Jiang went there, according to Barry White, a senior pastor with the church. Officials were tipped off and found him at the church entrance.

— The New York Times