CHICAGO
(AP) -- Two suburban Chicago men who posed for photos holding a black
Islamic State group flag at a Lake Michigan beach park were arrested
Wednesday on federal terrorist charges, and an undercover operative said
one of the men suggested homosexuals should be thrown off the city's
tallest building.
An FBI sting begun in 2015
compiled evidence that Joseph D. Jones and Edward Schimenti sought to
provide material support to Islamic State, including by provided
cellphones to one person working for the FBI and posing as an IS
supporter believing the phones would be used to detonate car bombs in
Syria, the 65-page complaint says.
Jones, a
part time chef, and Schimenti, who worked at a cancer treatment center,
drove the FBI operative to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport last
week on what they thought would be the first leg of a journey to Syria.
The complaint says Schimenti told him to "drench that land ... with
blood."
The 35-year-old men looked tired
standing in street clothes with their hands folded behind their backs
during a brief initial hearing Wednesday in federal court in Chicago.
When Magistrate Judge David Weisman asked if they understood the
charges, both answered calmly that they did.
If
convicted, the two would face a maximum prison term of 20 years. A
detention hearing was set for Monday, after which they would enter
pleas.
The complaint includes photos of them
holding the IS flag at the Illinois Beach State Park in Zion, where they
live. It also included details of postings on their social media
accounts.
While he helped the man he believed
would go to Syria get into condition at a local gym, Schmimenti conceded
he wasn't close to fighting shape, the complaint says. "I'm all big,
fat," he is quoted as saying. "But (God willing), the brothers will just
have me be the one to cut the neck."
Schimenti,
who also went by "Abdul Wali," allegedly told one person in on the
sting in February that he was angry about a co-worker because the person
was gay. Under Islamic Law, Schimenti was quoted as saying, "We are
putting you (homosexuals) on top of Sears Tower (now the Willis Tower)
and we drop you."
A photo posted on
Schimenti's Google Plus profile shows a masked man holding a knife, and
caption written in capital letters says that if you can't travel abroad
to fight, "then slaughter the pagans next to you." After watching an IS
video of captured soldiers being burned alive as they spoke a language
he didn't understand, Schimenti says, "I don't know what they're saying
but I love it," the complaint says.
A video
was posted on Jones' Google Plus profile entitled, "Some of the Deadly
Stabbing Ways: Do not Forget to Poison the Knife," the complaint says.
Another time, a person in on the FBI sting asked Jones if he ever
thought about traveling to Syria to live in Islamic State territory.
Jones, who was also known as "Yusuf Abdulhaqq," allegedly answered:
"Every night and day."
This is the latest of
several area cases related to Islamic State. A Chicago federal judge
last year sentenced former Illinois National Guard Hasan Edmonds to 30
years in prison and his cousin, Jonas Edmonds, to 21 years for plotting
to join Islamic State fighters and to attack a National Guard armory
just outside Chicago.
The complaint makes a
brief reference to Schimenti allegedly suggesting in March that the
Naval Station Great Lakes, a training ground for U.S. sailors just south
of Zion, could be a terrorist target.
The
sting started in September 2015 when an undercover agent approach Jones
at the Zion Police Department - where Jones was being questioned about
the killing of one of his friends - and the two began talking about
Islam. The complaint didn't offer details about the killing.
Schimenti
grew increasingly suspicious about the undercover agents, suggesting
that at least some weren't actually Islamic State sympathizers. He once
suggested something was "fishy" about them, adding that he had a good
sense of that because of his own criminal history. Jones also spoke
about past convictions, the complaint says.
