A Penn State University student, accused of posting pro-jihad messages online, should stay in jail on charges of assaulting two FBI agents, a federal prosecutor argued Thursday.Assistant U.S. Attorney Margaret Picking said Emerson Begolly frequently told relatives "I'm not long for this world" and that he wanted to become a martyr and take others with him when he killed himself. He had a loaded pistol when he was arrested Tuesday, she said.
Begolly has not been charged for his posts or for the alleged threats told to relatives. Federal Public Defender Marketa Sims said the charges arise from the agents' attempt to apprehend Begolly during an investigation into his online postings.
Sims said Begolly's Asperger's syndrome keeps him in his room typing bizarre things online, and the government's main source of information is his estranged mother, who has some sort of relationship with the lead agent in the case, Bradley Orsini.
"I think that what we've got here, as bizarre as it is, is two parents struggling over a child who is no longer a child," Sims said in a detention hearing in federal court.
The only evidence supporting the government's theory that Begolly is dangerous is his struggle with the two agents, she said.
"There's no history of violence. There's a history of being an oddball," the attorney said.
Begolly periodically whispered to Sims during his hearing but did not testify.
Michael Christman, a supervisory special agent who was uninvolved in the arrest, testified that he was unaware of the nature of the relationship between Orsini and Kowalski.
"I had heard that Orsini knew the family. I don't know what that means," Christman said.
Begolly is accused of biting Orsini and another agent who startled him Tuesday as he sat in a car in a Burger King parking lot in Mayport.
Christman said that the two agents sought to apprehend Begolly while they executed search warrants on his mother's house and his father's home. The two agents don't recall his biting them, Christman testified, but after a struggle that included rolling around in the parking lot, they found puncture wounds on their hands. Both agents eventually sought medical treatment, he testified.
Christman said he didn't know what the agents were investigating or what evidence supported the search warrants. He asserted that Begolly had posted a pro-jihad poem under the name Asadullah Alshishani, citing anonymous internet postings identifying it as Begolly's pseudonym.
Kowalski had cooperated with the agents. She called her son and told him that his grandmother was dying and he needed to see her, Christman testified. She picked him up at his father's farm and then drove to a Burger King, telling him that she was going inside to get a drink, and to stay in the car, Christman said.
He said that when the two agents opened the doors and identified themselves, Begolly screamed and reached toward his jacket pocket. In the pocket was a loaded 9 mm with a round in the chamber and the safety off. He had two loaded clips in the jacket as well.
In addition to the assault charge, he has been charged with carrying a firearm to commit a felony.
His father, Shawn Begolly, testified that he and his son often carried the pistols while walking around his 100-acre farm as a precaution against bears, coyotes or other wildlife. Sometimes they carried rifles or shotguns, he said.
Christman said Kowalski told agents that her son thought that he was being watched, was armed in case he ran into law enforcement officers.
Christman said that most of his information about the case came from Orsini.
During a failed federal prosecution of former Allegheny County coroner Dr. Cyril Wecht, the government turned over records demonstrating that when Orsini was an agent in New Jersey, he had been repeatedly disciplined for falsifying records.
Under questioning by Sims, Christman said he was aware that Orsini had been disciplined, but did not know why.
Begolly has been a student at Penn State New Kensington. Begolly's mother is a full professor with the university's engineering department, and his father has taught business classes for years on the same campus.
While attending Penn State, Begolly was interviewed for a story about a rally for Palestinians in University Park. In the story, he said he is of Chechen descent and sympathized with the Palestinians. His father testified that Begolly's maternal great-grandfather was Chechen.