Prosecutors, defense request 15-year sentence for Warwick man in terror case
Katie Mulvaney
kmulvane@providencejournal.com
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A Warwick man who has pleaded guilty to charges that he plotted to behead a conservative blogger in the name of the Islamic State is asking to be sentenced to 15 years in prison, the minimum allowed under federal law.
In a paper filed in U.S. District Court, Massachusetts, a lawyer for Nicholas Alexander Rovinski and his supporters cast Rovinski as a "uniquely vulnerable" man diagnosed with cerebral palsy at a young age who was easily preyed upon by his extremist terrorist co-conspirators under the guise of friendship. They chronicle Rovinski being tormented by classmates as a child and desperate for friends.
"For a time, he adopted an odious, violent extremist ideology," wrote lawyer William Fick. "He expressed readiness to sign on to plans of his co-conspirators and suggested fantastical schemes of his own. Fortunately, however, he never came close to participating in any actual act of violence, and as the medical and psychiatric information demonstrates, he was uniquely ill equipped ever to do so."
Federal prosecutors, too, are asking that Rovinski be sentenced to 15 years in prison, given his cooperation with authorities that led to the conviction of his co-conspirator David Wright. They are seeking for Rovinski to remain under federal supervision for life.
Rovinski, 25, pleaded guilty in September 2016 to conspiring to provide material supported to a terrorist organization and conspiring to commit terrorist acts last year. He faces 15 to 22 years in prison at his sentencing on Wednesday.
Rovinski testified against Wright at trial, telling jurors that Wright said conservative blogger Pamela Geller "deserved to be beheaded" because she had organized a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest in Texas.
"What differentiates Rovinski from many other terrorist defendants is that he has recognized the wrongfulness of his prior beliefs and actions, publicly repudiated his support for ISIS, and testified against his co-defendant thereby providing extensive cooperation to the government, which was critical in the government convicting Wright for his terrorism offenses," Assistant U.S. Attorney B. Stephanie Siegman wrote.
Authorities say that Rovinski met Wright, of Everett, Mass., in November 2014 via Facebook, and they soon began discussing their mutual support of ISIS and calls to kill kufar, or nonbelievers. They shared those beliefs with Wright's uncle, Usaamah Rahim, of Boston.
Wright sent Rovinski ISIS materials through the internet, including videos of beheadings and documents calling on ISIS supporters to target non-Muslims.
In 2015, ISIS issued a fatwa, or religious decree, calling on supporters to kill Geller because of her role in organizing the Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest. Two Muslim men ended up attacking the contest and were shot by police.
Wright, then, named Geller as the target for his group's first beheading. Rovinski researched in preparation.
Rahim later told Wright he wanted to go after the "boys in blue," referring to police. Two hours later, Rahim was fatally shot by investigators who said he had lunged at them with a knife.
A Pilgrim High School graduate, Rovinski was arrested in June 2015 at home on 167 Aspinet Drive that he shared with his brother and mother. While in custody, authorities say, he sent two letters to Wright in which he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, talked about beheading people and told Wright that he had recruited a fellow inmate to help "take down" the East Coast and the U.S. government. He wrote that he couldn't wait "for them juicy necks."
"I believe that these men brainwashed my son Nicholas, grooming him into what they believed by using things he liked like his cat, agriculture and hunting," his mother Lori Rovinski wrote to the court.
Fick asks that Rovinski serve his sentence in Danbury, Conn., where he could participate in a treatment program for inmates with intellectual disabilities and social deficiencies.
Wright was sentenced on Tuesday to 28 years in prison.