Former Illinois college student gets 5 years in terrorist threat case

EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. - Defense attorneys vowed Wednesday to appeal the conviction and five-year prison sentence given a former Southern Illinois University Edwardsville student for attempting to communicate a terrorist threat.

Defense attorney Jeffrey Urdangen called the prosecution of 26-year-old Olutosin Oduwole "a First Amendment train wreck," but Madison County State's Attorney Tom Gibbons said the arrest and prosecution prevented an attack that could have resulted in numerous deaths.

In October, a jury found Oduwole guilty of attempting to communicate a terror threat, a felony, and of illegally possessing a handgun on the SIUE campus, a misdemeanor. Circuit Judge Richard Tognarelli sentenced him to five years in prison for the felony and a concurrent 364 days and $1,000 fine for the misdemeanor. The felony penalty range runs from probation to 15 years in prison. Oduwole will be required to serve at least half the five years, minus a few months for time already spent in jail.

SIUE police found a scrap of paper in Oduwole's locked car, parked along a campus roadway in July 2007, with writing that seemed to threaten "a murderous rampage" at a large university unless money was placed in an unspecified PayPal account online. Oduwole, an aspiring rap music artist, maintained that the words were merely possible lyrics for a rap song.

He was already under police scrutiny after a weapons dealer reported concerns at how anxious Oduwole was for delivery of four firearms he had ordered online.

Prosecutor James Buckley argued to the jury that what Oduwole wrote was like shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater. The note was found only about two months after a student killed 32 people and wounded 25 others in a shooting spree at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va.

But Urdangen told the jury the evidence showed there was no threat and no attempt to communicate one.

Before the sentencing Wednesday, defense attorney Justin Kuehn argued for probation, which he said is the presumptive punishment when an offender has no record of other serious crimes. Kuehn said prosecutors could not cite any instance of violent behavior by Oduwole.

Kuehn told the judge that prosecutors were asking him to "punish for the threat as if it had been carried out."

Prosecutor John Fischer asked for a 15-year prison sentence. He said Oduwole possessed a loaded firearm on campus and was awaiting delivery of four more guns. Fischer noted that Oduwole had tried to purchase another firearm while free on bail.

Urdangen said the conviction on the felony charge will be appealed on grounds that include First Amendment free speech guarantees and the constitutionality of the law.

Urdangen stopped short of saying the trial was unfair.

"My beef is with the charge being sought in the first instance," he said.

Before the sentencing hearing, Tognarelli denied a defense motion that the conviction be overturned. Urdangen said post-trial comments by Gibbons, the state's attorney, showed that Oduwole was prosecuted for exercising First Amendment rights of expression.

Urdangen argued there was no evidence at all that Oduwole had tried to communicate a threat. He called the jury's verdict "the opposite of jury nullification," the term applied when a jury unhappy with a law ignores clear evidence it has been violated. In Oduwole's case, he said, the jury ignored the lack of evidence that a crime had occurred.

Following the scheduled sentencing, Oduwole pleaded guilty to felony counts of theft and computer fraud in an apparently unrelated 2007 matter. He was accused of selling a firearm online and collecting a $1,000 deposit without ever owning or delivering the gun. Tognarelli sentenced him to 30 months probation, concurrent with the other sentences.

Gibbons issued a statement later credited "the good instincts of the firearms dealer and the quick actions of local and federal law enforcement prevented an attack and saved countless lives."

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