The National Guard reservist arrested this week for planning to blow up the Los Angeles subway attended a radical California-based mosque that has been home to known terrorists and other extremist Muslims deported from the United States for their ties to terror.

Nicholas Teausant, 20, of Acampo, Calif., was charged Monday with attempting to provide material to support a foregoing terrorist organization, the U.S. District Attorney’s Office said. He made his first appearance in a federal courtroom in Seattle Monday afternoon.

Teausant was arrested at the Canadian border “with the intent of continuing to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, a foreign terrorist organization more widely known as al-Qaida in Iraq,” officials said.

Teausant—who was found to be in possession of “lone wolf” terror manuals that teach readers how to build and detonate bombs—was known to have attended a terror-tied mosque in Lodi, a small town east of San Francisco.

Nicholas Teausant, 20, of Acampo, Calif., was charged Monday with attempting to provide material to support a foregoing terrorist organization, the U.S. District Attorney’s Office said. He made his first appearance in a federal courtroom in Seattle Monday afternoon.

Teausant allegedly told an FBI informant online that the New Year’s subway bombing had been canceled because they had been “tipped off.”

The informant put the alleged would-be terrorist in contact with a mentor, who was actually an undercover federal agent. That undercover mentor gave Teausant the green light to travel to Syria. Teausant boarded an Amtrak train bound for Seattle Sunday night and then got on a bus. When the bus was about to cross the border into Canada federal agents stopped it, questioned Teausant and arrested him.

The college student has been charged with one count of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. If convicted, Teausant faces up to 12 years in prison.

Court documents say Teausant is a student at San Joaquin Delta Community College in Stockton and a member of the National Guard, who never underwent basic training because he didn’t meet academic requirements.

San Joaquin Delta Community College in Stockton

“He’s not a terrorist. He’s not evil,” Teausant’s mother said Monday, while sobbing.

CBS2/KCAL9 also spoke with the suspect’s grandmother, Virginia Teausant, by phone the same day. She said he “did join something, a Muslim or something, a religion, and we were really surprised by that and not happy about it.”

Who would be? More: Man arrested in Blaine sought to join al-Qaida

The complaint also said he had been planning since October to support the efforts of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a group that has been fighting in Syria’s three-year-old civil war and is designated by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization.

Investigators said Teausant discussed his scheme at length with a person who turned out to be a paid FBI informant, repeatedly affirming that he was serious about it.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is a breakaway organization from al-Qaida that is considered one of the most brutal groups fighting in Syria’s civil war, made up largely of non-Syrian Islamic militants. It has seized several areas in Syria as it fights the government of President Bashar Assad.

The complaint said Teausant referred to himself as a convert to Islam but did not give details about when or why he may have done so. He met the informant through a mutual acquaintance, the document said.

Among  plans was to appear in videos for the group, without covering his face — to be “the one white devil that leaves their face wide open to the camera,” he was quoted in the complaint as saying.

Teausant’s baby daughter… he is a single parent.

The complaint also states that Teausant told the informant he has an infant daughter, and had arranged for his mother to get custody of the girl if he disappeared.

The Lodi Mosque in Lodi, Calif. / AP

The Lodi mosque has frequently found itself at the center of FBI terrorism investigations and its former imam was arrested and deported for urging his congregation to kill Americans in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001.

An Instagram account believed to be Teausant’s features several images of the mosque and comments such as, “Let’s hit dis prayer!! #muslim #prayer #alhamduilliah #mashallah #makedua #inshallah #AllahuAkbar.”

Terror mastermind Ayman Al-Zawahiri, a close friend of Osama bin Laden and current leader of al Qaeda, attended the mosque prior to 9/11, according to reports.

Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda

“Every time I would go to the mosque, [Al-Zawahiri] would be coming or going,” an FBI informant testified, according to the Sacramento Bee. “He would quietly come to the mosque and leave.”

The Lodi mosque’s former imam, Hamid Hayat of Lodi, convicted on terrorism charges in 2007, was arrested in 2005 and accused of urging his followers to back bin Laden and kill Americans.

Ahmed was also accused by the Justice Department of having links to a terrorist group in Pakistan, according to local reports.

Ahmed eventually admitted to “criticizing” America, and his case was used as an early example of how radical individuals slip through the State Department’s visa system.

The imam was ultimately deported back to Pakistan as a result of his ties.

Another Lodi imam linked to Ahmed also was arrested in the terrorism probe and eventually deported back to Pakistan.

The terrorism probe was also widened to include other individuals in the community who admitted to having attended a “jihadist training camp in Pakistan for approximately six months,” according to local media reports.

Hamid Hayat, a suspect at the time who is now serving a federal prison sentence, reportedly told investigators that he and others “were being trained on how to kill Americans,” according to an FBI affidavit filed in 2005.

Hamid Hayat of Lodi, convicted on terrorism charges in 2007

Teausant’s time at the mosque may have contributed to a wider pattern of radical behavior that emerged in the months before he was arrested in the terror plot.

A YouTube page believed to belong to Teausant includes videos of Anwar Al-Awlaki. He was also found with copies of al Qaeda’s Inspire magazine, which teaches readers how to commit acts of terror.

Teausant—who had expressed a desire to fight in Syria—allegedly texted an FBI informant in October of last year to say that “he had been reading Inspire and was upset and wanted to help the ‘Blind Sheikh,’” Omar Abdel-Rahman, a terrorist leader who is currently serving life in prison.

“WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING NOW!” Teausant texted to the informant, according to the FBI complaint.

Terrorism analyst Patrick Poole said Teausant’s radical online interactions were likely just as important as his personal ones.

“When you look at Teausant’s social media and the Justice Department complaint, you get a picture of someone who was participating in an online community that was contributing to his radicalization,” Poole said. “But you also see that he was heavily involved in a local community already known as a hotbed of radicalization known for anti-American sentiment, extremist speakers, terrorist fundraising, and regular themes of global Islamic grievances that contributed to that process.”

“From his own Lodi mosque you already have Hamid Hayat sitting in federal prison for spending two years at an al Qaeda training camp in Pakistan,” Poole said.

“It’s pretty certain that he wasn’t planning on joining the jihadist cause by getting to Syria all on his own—he was going to need financial and logistical help and contacts once he got there,” Poole added. “Historically we know those support networks already exist in the places he was hanging out regularly in Lodi and Stockton. That’s an angle that hopefully law enforcement are already looking at in this case.”