A DePaul University student’s online bragging about his computer skills and support for the Islamic State was nothing more than “puffing” and is protected free speech, the student’s lawyer told a federal jury Tuesday.

       “It’s like someone going on their dating profile and saying they’re 6-foot-3 with abs of steel when they look like me,” attorney Steve Greenberg said in his opening statement in the terrorism-related trial of his client, Thomas Osadzinski. “He’s puffing ... he’s saying stuff, but it’s not enough.”

       Osadzinski, 22, is accused in a federal indictment with using the computer skills he was learning at DePaul to craft a first-of-its-kind code designed to spread violent propaganda for the Islamic State terrorist group online.

       Prosecutors alleged Osadzinski converted to Islam while a teen, expressing his devotion to the Islamic State in online forums that included undercover FBI employees he believed were terrorist sympathizers.

       In her opening remarks Tuesday, prosecutor Alexandra Hughes, a trial attorney with the U.S. Justice Department, said Osadzinski was clear in his communications that he wanted to use the skills he was building at DePaul to wage “jihad in media.”

       Many of his ideas failed, but in the summer of 2019, a script Osadzinski wrote was successful in automatically downloading and spreading “thousands upon thousands” of violent pro-ISIS videos and images before they could be deleted by social media companies, Hughes said.

       Osadzinski shared the script with an undercover FBI agent posing as an ISIS supporter, giving a “step by step analysis of what he was doing,” in order to teach others, Hughes said.

       “At the bottom line, the defendant’s process worked,” she said. “It did what it was supposed to do.”

       Greenberg, however, painted Osadzinski as a sad-sack college student who was getting a D in computer science. He said Osadzinski found solace in the online Islamic community and was eventually drawn in by a highly paid confidential FBI informant who befriended him and helped move the plot along.

       “He took advantage of this young man who was trying to find his way in life,” Greenberg said.

       Prosecutors’ first witness on Tuesday was an FBI language analyst who started chatting online with Osadzinski in June 2018 about the recipe for a powerful explosive favored by terrorists and suicide bombers.

       The witness, testifying under the alias Mahammad Hazeem, said that when he told Osadzinski he should be careful, Osadzinski allegedly responded he “will be doing some studying.”

       “You mean studying for school?” Hazeem responded in the chat, which was shown to jurors on a large screen in U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman’s courtroom.

       Osadzinski allegedly replied, “For jihad,” followed by a heart emoji and a symbol associated with the Islamic State terrorist group.

       Osadzinski also talked in their chat about plans for a potential attack in the U.S., according to Hazeem’s testimony.

       At one point, Hazeem said he warned Osadzinski to choose any targets carefully so he wouldn’t hurt innocent Muslims. Osadzinski responded it was “best to target the government.”

       Osadzinski also wrote that targeting citizens “can be risky” unless they are committing blatant sins in public, such as at an “LGBT parade” drinking at bars and nightclubs, according to the testimony.

       On cross-examination, Hazeem acknowledged that his alert level was low because Osadzinski didn’t seem to have any concrete plans. In fact, after Osadzinski first posted something about jihad, Hazeem waited 23 days to communicate with him.

       Osadzinski also made statements showing his seeming naivete. At one point, after Hazeem asked him if he had access to a gun, he responded he wasn’t old enough legally buy one. Defense attorney Joshua Herman asked how that could be taken seriously, given the prevalence of guns in Chicago.

       “Sounds like an excuse?” Herman asked.

       “Could be,” Hazeem answered.

       jmeisner@chicagotribune.com

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