Federal prosecutors are seeking significant prison time for a pair of Zion men found guilty at the end of a lengthy trial last year of a conspiracy to provide material support to the Islamic State.
Edward Schimenti and Joseph D. Jones are set to be sentenced next month by U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood. The sentencings could still be delayed by the coronavirus outbreak, but federal prosecutors filed a 26-page memo Thursday in anticipation of the hearings.
The feds are seeking a 20-year prison sentence for Schimenti and a 17-year prison sentence for Jones. They said Schimenti deserved more time behind bars because he lied to the FBI.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Barry Jonas in the memo described the conduct of Jones and Schimenti as “egregious and dangerous.” He wrote they were fully aware of the “murderous acts” committed by the Islamic State but “did not hesitate to provide support to the group.”
However, when the government intervened, Jonas noted, “They were not actively plotting to either travel to join ISIS, looking to facilitate travel for others, or to commit a terrorist attack in the United States. On the spectrum of comparable terrorism cases, the government does not believe a statutory maximum sentence is warranted.”
Prosecutors unveiled a 77-page criminal complaint in April 2017 that accused the pair of sharing gruesome Islamic State videos online, fantasizing about the ISIS flag “on top of the White House,” and, crucially, collecting cellphones they thought could be used as detonators by terrorists overseas.
The pair met a man who turned out to be a confidential informant for the FBI. They helped him collect the cellphones, introduced him to an undercover fed they believed would get him overseas, and then drove the man to O’Hare Airport to begin his journey on April 7, 2017.
“To be perfectly clear,” Jonas wrote in the memo Thursday, “the defendants believed that every phone equaled a bomb and each bomb would bring harm to enemies of ISIS. They showed no compassion for their intended victims or their families.”
The prosecutor also wrote that Schimenti “expressed a desire to commit an attack” at the Naval Station Great Lakes. Jonas wrote that Schimenti told one informant that he was “always thinking” of the graduations that take place there.
A jury found the 38-year-old men guilty last June after a roughly three-week trial. The jury also found Schimenti guilty of lying to the FBI about a matter involving international terrorism. Their lawyers are expected to file similar memos in the coming weeks.
In the lead-up to their trial, lawyers for Jones and Schimenti convinced the judge they should be allowed to present an entrapment defense to the jury. Their attorneys said the men never “took any affirmative steps” to help the terrorist group until a federal confidential informant got involved.
Prosecutors said Jones shared Islamic State videos that depicted the deaths of people who were beheaded by a child soldier, drowned in a cage, and blown up by a rocket-propelled grenade while locked inside a vehicle. Another video demonstrated various ways to stab someone. It was titled, “Some of the Deadly Stabbing Ways: Do not Forget to Poison the Knife.”
Still, the defense lawyers argued, “This is all protected speech, [no] matter how morally objectionable it may seem. Supporting distasteful, objectionably horrible groups is in and of itself not a crime. In fact, it is protected by the Constitution.”
