Catherine Beth Washburn used to raise money for dog shelters. Her Facebook page identified her as a stay-at-home mother from Irondequoit, a middle-class suburb outside Rochester, New York. Then, weeks after October 7, 2023, her social media pivoted — and the dog shelters were replaced with something considerably different.
Eighty cryptocurrency transfers. Thirty thousand, one hundred sixteen dollars. All sent to a man in Gaza who told her he was a fighter for Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
According to a federal criminal complaint reported by the New York Post, the 37-year-old Washburn didn't just donate. She led an extremist organization called the Direct Action Movement for Palestinian Liberation — DAMPL — which rejected peaceful protest in favor of "direct action," the activist euphemism for sabotage and property destruction. She designed t-shirts featuring terror group logos for fundraising. She offered to send topographical maps to her contact in Gaza. She participated in anti-Israel street protests in Rochester.
And the quotes from her private conversations are something else entirely.
"I wish every day were October 7th," Washburn told her Gaza contact. "If I lived in Gaza, I would fight alongside the resistance." She wrote, "I hate the Jews very much" and "I feel excited every time I see news of the killing of an occupation soldier." She even acknowledged what she was doing was criminal: "Based on my passed fundraising and posting Im gonna get put away for a few life times."
She was right about that part. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg didn't mince words: "Those who aid foreign terrorist groups will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law." Washburn faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The case is being handled by U.S. Attorney Michael DiGiacomo in the Western District of New York, with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force running the investigation under Acting Assistant Director Coult Markovsky.
The financial trail, laid out in the DOJ press release, is meticulous. Between October 2025 and April 2026, Washburn made approximately 80 cryptocurrency transfers totaling about $30,116 in USDC through Coinbase. The money went to an individual identified only as "H.H." — a PIJ fighter who claimed participation in the October 7th invasion and said he conducted "missions" in northern Gaza and near the Erez Crossing. H.H. had 319,000 Instagram followers and 565,000 on Facebook. He wasn't hiding.
Neither was Washburn, frankly. She used Chuffed, an Australia-based fundraising platform, and collected 1,302 donations. Her Instagram account linked to ten separate fundraisers. Her social media bio read: "Donating directly to families in Gaza saves lives." The FBI executed search warrants in February and March of 2026.
The Gaza contact even thanked her in terms that left zero ambiguity about what the money was for: "Catherine, you really were fighting alongside me, my love. Your assistance to us here in Gaza is fighting in the path of Allah."
The standard objection writes itself — lone wolf, fringe actor, not representative. Except DAMPL wasn't a one-woman operation. It was an organized group with a stated philosophy of illegal action. And Washburn wasn't radicalized in a cave. She was radicalized on Instagram, in a Rochester suburb, while the progressive establishment spent three years telling everyone that anti-Israel activism was just free speech and anyone who questioned it was an Islamophobe.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad is a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. That's not a matter of opinion or political framing. It's federal law. And a stay-at-home mom from western New York sent them thirty grand in crypto while posting about how much she enjoyed watching soldiers die.
She raised money for dog shelters. Then she raised money for Al-Quds Brigades. The algorithm served her the same fundraising tools for both.