Pennsylvania Man pleads guilty in federal terror cases Defendant allegedly bit two FBI agents when they attempted to question him

By Joe Mandak Associated Press PITTSBURGH (AP) -- A Pennsylvania man was scheduled to plead guilty Tuesday to using the Internet to promote terror attacks against American military and civilian targets in posts he made on an Islamic extremist web forum he moderated. He also will plead guilty to having a loaded pistol when he allegedly bit two FBI agents who tried to question him. Online federal court records show Emerson Begolly, 22, signed an agreement last week to plead guilty to one count of solicitation to commit a crime of violence. That charge was brought by a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va., in July, but was transferred to the U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh so he could plead guilty to it at a change of plea hearing on other charges prompted by the alleged biting incident in New Bethlehem, Pa., in January. A court official with knowledge of the Pittsburgh charges confirmed that Begolly will plead guilty to a single charge of possessing a firearm while committing a crime of violence -- that is, having a gun when he allegedly bit the agents. The official requested anonymity because the plea wasn't formally entered until Tuesday afternoon. The charge of soliciting to commit a crime of violence, out of Virginia, carries up to 10 years in prison, while the weapons charge in Pennsylvania carries up to a life sentence, though it's exceedingly rare for defendants to plead guilty to such a charge without some assurance of less than a life sentence. Assistant federal public defender Marketa Sims, of Pittsburgh, represents Begolly on both sets of charges, but declined to comment until Tuesday's change of plea hearing before Senior U.S. District Judge Maurice B. Cohill Jr. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Pittsburgh said prosecutors plan to issue a news release after the hearing, but otherwise declined comment. Begolly has been jailed since he allegedly bit two FBI agents who approached him in a parked car while others searched his divorced parents' Pittsburgh-area homes on Jan. 4 while investigating his Internet activities. He was indicted by a federal grand jury in Virginia last month on charges he encouraged terror attacks on public buildings and military facilities, transportation systems, cell phone towers and water plants in the United States on posts to the Ansar al-Mujahideen English Forum. Begolly was living with his father in Mayport, about 60 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, when agents searched that residence and the home of his mother, who was cooperating with the FBI, about 20 miles northeast of the city. The agents said Begolly bit them and reached for a loaded 9mm pistol hidden in a military field jacket when they approached him as he sat in his mother's car, which she had parked while she went inside a fast-food restaurant as part of a prearranged plan with the agents. Sims, the public defender, has argued that Begolly responded violently only because he has a form of autism known as Asperger's syndrome, which was aggravated by FBI agents sneaking up on him and the fact that his mother told him his grandmother was gravely ill -- a ruse designed to enable her to pick him up at his father's house that day. But a federal magistrate in Pittsburgh ordered Begolly to remain jailed pending trial on the biting and weapons charges after prosecutors in Pittsburgh told the judge about Begolly's web postings -- which later became the basis for charges filed in Virginia -- and because they showed the judge terror "training" videos in which Begolly fired an assault weapon at various targets while wearing military fatigues. Agents testified that Begolly posted pro-terrorist songs and poems and chatted online at least two other Americans being prosecuted for terrorism, including Colleen LaRose, an eastern Pennsylvania woman who dubbed herself Jihad Jane in a YouTube video that caught the FBI's attention in 2009. LaRose pleaded guilty in February to agreeing to try to kill a Swedish cartoonist who had offended Muslims, and she faces a life sentence. Published: Wed, Aug 10, 2011