BOSTON (AP) – A Massachusetts man accused of participating in a plot to behead conservative blogger Pamela Geller was an overweight attention-seeker who became consumed by Islamic State group propaganda in a desperate bid to escape his own bleak reality, his defense attorney said Wednesday.
Federal authorities say David Wright conspired with his uncle and a third man to kill Geller, who angered Muslims when she organized a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest in Texas. The plot was never carried out. Wright also wanted to carry out other attacks in the U.S. and encouraged his uncle to kill police officers, officials say.
Wright’s attorneys sought to portray him as a lost young man who had poor judgment but is not a criminal. When Wright was allegedly plotting with the other men, he weighed more than 500 pounds, lived with his mother and had no career, his attorney said during her opening statement. In the online world of the Islamic State group, he found acceptance and an escape, Jessica Hedges said.
But it was only talk, she said.
“In 2015, David felt very, very fat, very failed, and was living in a world of fantastical ideas,” Hedges told jurors at the federal courthouse in Boston. “He hid behind screens, looking for an escape, looking for a distraction from who he really was.”