U.S. seeks life sentence for man in Islamic State beheading plot

[December 19, 2017]  BOSTON (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors were due on Tuesday to ask a judge to impose a life sentence on a Massachusetts man found guilty of conspiring to support Islamic State militants in a 2015 plot to attack police and behead a blogger who organized a "Draw Mohammed" contest.

David Wright, 28, was found guilty in October of five criminal charges for planning with his uncle and a friend to travel to New York to attempt to behead conservative blogger Pamela Geller.

The group never made the trip, as Wright's uncle, Usamaah Rahim, lost patience and told his co-conspirators that he wanted to kill law enforcement officers in Massachusetts. Agents overheard that conversation, and when police approached Rahim in a supermarket parking lot to question him, authorities say he lunged at them with a knife and was shot dead.

Wright was not present but was convicted of plotting the New York attack as well as destroying evidence.

Federal prosecutors said a life sentence, the stiffest possibility Wright faces, was necessary because it was unclear if he would plan other attacks if released from prison.

"The defendant claims that he now believes ISIS is 'disgusting,'" they wrote in a sentencing memo to U.S. District Judge William Young in Boston. "The defendant, however, cannot be trusted. It is unclear what he intends to do in the future or whether he is de-radicalized as the defense claims."

Wright testified during his five-week trial that he had been living in a "fantasy world" and that the plans were no more than role playing. He said he had never intended to harm Geller and that he was stunned when Rahim attacked police.

His defense lawyers asked for a sentence of 16 years, followed by a lifetime of supervised release.

"The government's requested sentence of life is draconian, subverts the purposes of sentencing, and would interminably warehouse a person who is capable of and committed to redeeming himself given the opportunity," Wright's lawyers wrote.

Geller's May 2015 contest in Texas featured cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, images that many Muslims consider blasphemous. Two gunmen had attacked that event, and police shot them dead.

Geller said her event was intended as a demonstration of the free-speech rights protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Rahim's family has denied that he showed any signs of radicalization. The third co-conspirator, Nicholas Rovinski, pleaded guilty and testified against Wright.

(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

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