Two suburban men were found guilty Thursday of providing support to the Islamic State.
Edward Schimenti and Joseph D. Jones, both 37, were convicted of conspiracy to provide material support, and Schimenti was also convicted of lying to the FBI.
Schimenti and Jones wound up in federal custody in April 2017. A 77-page criminal complaint filed at the time contained photos of them posing with the ISIS flag at Illinois Beach State Park in Zion. It also suggested Schimenti had been trying to gather the courage to launch an attack at Naval Station Great Lakes.
But in the lead-up to their trial, which began late last month at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse, their lawyers convinced U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood they should be allowed to present an entrapment defense.
The investigation of their clients lasted a year and a half and involved several law enforcement agents working undercover, records show. Eventually, the feds say Jones and Schimenti helped collect cellphones they thought would be used as detonators overseas.
Schimenti was also charged with lying to the FBI about the plan.
During the investigation, prosecutors said Jones shared gruesome Islamic State videos — depicting 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.”
“This is all protected speech, (no) matter how morally objectionable it may seem,” lawyers for the two men wrote in a court filing last month. “Supporting distasteful, objectionably horrible groups is in and of itself not a crime. In fact, it is protected by the Constitution.”
One undercover fed asked Jones is he ever thought about joining ISIS. Jones allegedly replied, “every night and day.” Schimenti allegedly fantasized about how, under Islamic law, they could put gay people “on top of the Sears Tower and we drop you.”
Attorneys for the two men argued that they never “took any affirmative steps” to help a terrorist group until a federal confidential informant got involved.
“They never researched on their computers how to make explosives, or how cell phones can work as detonators,” the lawyers wrote.
Though Schimenti had been the moderator of a Facebook group sympathetic to ISIS, they said, “at no time did Mr. Schimenti solicit or inquire about the possibility of meeting anyone offline and providing material support” to a terrorist group.
“This only started once prompted by government agents,” the lawyers argued.
Finally, when an undercover agent asked in December 2015 whether Schimenti wanted to “rock it out” and commit violence, they said Schimenti became irate and stormed out of a meeting.
