Defense paints alleged jihadi as a fat ‘down-and-out’ loser
The man accused of launching a failed terror plot aimed at beheading a conservative columnist was a self-centered, 500-pound, repulsive introvert who lived online and cooked up “fantastical” schemes as a way to find his place in the world, his defense attorney said.
“He was obnoxious. He was self-consumed. He was an incredibly lost young man with incredibly poor judgment,” said Jessica Hedges, a member of David Wright’s defense team, during opening arguments in federal court in Boston yesterday.
Wright is accused of conspiring with his uncle, Usaamah Abdullah Rahim, and an online friend, Nicholas Rovinski, to kill blogger Pamela Geller at the behest of ISIS after she organized a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest in Texas.
Prosecutors say Wright was the ringleader of the trio and wanted to carry out other attacks across the country. Authorities say he also convinced Rahim to try and kill the “boys in blue” — a plan that he tried to carry out before he was shot dead by police in a Roslindale parking lot in the summer of 2015.
“This case is about a U.S. citizen who was a member of ISIS who wanted to behead multiple people,” federal prosecutor B. Stephanie Siegmann said.
But Wright’s attorney said the terrorism-inspired plan that Wright concocted was all part of a stupid game being played by an overweight, down-and-out man who had no idea that he would eventually be pegged as an American terrorist.
“He felt very fat, very failed and lived in a world of fantastical ideas,” Hedges said.
Rovinski, who pleaded guilty in September to conspiracy charges, took the stand yesterday and said he and Wright would talk about ISIS and perhaps joining the terrorist organization. He added that, when the two met, Wright was the one who brought up killing Geller.
Rovinski will be back on the stand today.