Man guilty in terror plot against conservative blogger Pamela Geller to be freed amid coronavirus

A federal judge on Thursday, citing the coronavirus pandemic, ordered the release, of a Rhode Island man who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for participating in a plot to behead conservative blogger Pamela Geller on behalf of the Islamic State.

U.S. District Judge for Massachusetts William Young on Thursday announced the release of 29-year-old Nicholas Rovinski, whose lawyers this week argued that due to his medical conditions, which include cerebral palsy and hypertension, he is vulnerable to serious illness from COVID-19.

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“The court concludes that there exist extraordinary and compelling circumstances that warrant granting this motion for compassionate release,” Young wrote in his order.

Rovinski was previously slated to be released from federal prison in 2028. He was sentenced in 2017 after pleading guilty to conspiracy for his role in the plot to kill Geller, who organized a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, in 2015.

Young reduced Rovinski’s sentence to time served, and ordered him to spend the next 10 years in home confinement with electronic monitoring, with the first six months in “strict home confinement.”

Young also denied prosecutors’ request to delay Rovinski’s release for 30 days while they consider an appeal. Prosecutors argued that the decision is an outcome “most would find hard to fathom under the circumstances, especially in the absence of any concrete rationale for the result.”

"We disagree with the court's decision to now nullify that sentence – after only five years – based on COVID concerns," U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said in an emailed statement to the Associated Press.

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"We realize that Rovinski has certain medical issues, but this does not justify releasing to 'home confinement' – after serving a mere third of his sentence – someone who willfully conspired to kill people for ISIS," he wrote.

Rovinski, during the trial, testified against David Wright, who prosecutors described as the mastermind of the plot.

The cartoon contest Geller organized ended in gunfire, with two Muslim gunmen shot to death by police. The plot to behead Geller was never carried out. Instead, Wright's uncle, Ussamah Rahim, told Wright on a recorded phone call that he decided to go after "those boys in blue," referring to police. Hours later, Rahim was fatally shot by authorities after he lunged at them with a knife when they approached him in Boston.

Wright was sentenced to 28 years in prison but is scheduled to be resentenced next month after an appeals court overturned one of his convictions.

Geller said releasing Rovinski "sends the message to thousands of others like him that they can plot freely to murder those who say things that offend their evil ideology, and the consequences will be slight.”

"He terrorized our lives," she said in an email to the Associated Press. "He has caused me and my relatives physical and emotional distress, as well as the crippling financial costs required as a result of his mass murder plot. This will never end for me, and so it should never end for Nicholas Rovinski.”

The judge’s order comes after Attorney General Bill Barr instructed the Bureau of Prisons,  in a memo on March 26, to move nonviolent inmates who were at risk of contracting COVID-19 out of prison facilities and allow them to serve out their sentences in home confinement.

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Barr, though, directed the bureau to prioritize home confinement for prisoners in low- and minimum-security facilities who pose no safety threat to the community and have a low likelihood of recidivism.

Criminals who have committed violent crimes or sexual offenses were not eligible for home confinement.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.