Chicago Man Sentenced to Seven and a Half Years in Federal Prison for Attempting To Provide Material Support to ISIS

CHICAGO — A federal judge today sentenced a Chicago man to seven and a half years in federal prison for attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).

A jury last year convicted THOMAS OSADZINSKI, 23, after a trial in U.S. District Court in Chicago.  U.S. District Judge Robert W. Gettleman ordered that the prison term be followed by ten years of court-supervised release.

The sentence was announced by John R. Lausch, Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Matthew G. Olsen, Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the U.S. Department of Justice; and John S. Morales, Acting Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI. 

The case was investigated by the Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Force, which is comprised of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.  The government was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Barry Jonas and Melody Wells of the Northern District of Illinois, and Alexandra Hughes, Trial Attorney of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section.

Evidence presented at trial revealed that ISIS and its supporters disseminated the terror group’s propaganda materials on social media to recruit fighters and inspire violence against the United States and other countries.  Many social media platforms removed ISIS media content due to the violent nature of the materials.  Osadzinski, a U.S. citizen, designed, used, and taught a process using a computer script to make ISIS propaganda more conveniently disseminated online.  The process would automatically copy and preserve ISIS media postings in an organized format, allowing social media users to continue to conveniently access and share the content.

Osadzinski in 2019 shared his script – and instructions for how to use it – with individuals whom he believed to be ISIS supporters and members of pro-ISIS media organizations.  Unbeknownst to Osadzinski, the individuals were actually covert FBI employees and a person confidentially working with law enforcement.