Jason Ludke (Part 4)

Fragments of a future narrative

First he lied, saying he was an ISIS recruiter. That’s how the UCE—the FBI’s undercover employee—drew Jason in.

It was September 2016. “He reached out on Facebook,” Jason recalled, “and he had me send a friend request.”

The Brown County Jail, in Green Bay, had released Jason six months before. He spent the spring and summer adrift: working at Tufco Technologies until “he walked off the job”; staying at a residential re-entry center, but failing to report back as required.

When he left the center in July, there were conditions: GPS monitoring, residency restrictions. Green Bay’s Sex Offender Residence Board wrote, on September 15, “to deny [his] request to move to 135 S. Buchanan Street.”

“Look how kind of stupid that is,” Jason fumed. “You’re gonna set up so many roadblocks to me to just get out, and just live a normal life again.” Confronting these barriers stressed him, and he started “taking pills all the time, and smoking weed.” He ranted online against Green Bay’s residency laws. He sought escape.

“I want to make hijra [to migrate] away from darul kufr [literally, ‘house of disbelief’],” he messaged the UCE. They exchanged contact information.

Jason called him on September 28, detailing his plan to flee to Mexico. “The UCE asked LUDKE to wait for further instructions before making any attempt to leave the United States,” according to the FBI’s criminal complaint. 

That was the second aspect: after the lie, control. Events would play out on the UCE’s timeline.