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Deliberations Expected Tuesday In Federal Explosives Trial

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By TOM BRENNAN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 30, 2009

Updated: 03/30/2009 04:49 pm

TAMPA - Jury deliberations are expected to begin Tuesday in the federal explosives trial of former University of South Florida student Youssef Megahed.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys concluded calling witnesses and presenting testimony today.

When the trial resumes, U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday is expected to instruct jurors in the law they should follow in their deliberations. Then prosecutors and defense attorneys are slated to make their closing arguments.

Merryday told jurors those arguments could take up to two hours for each side.

Megahed is charged with transporting explosives and possessing a destructive device. He could face up to 20 years in federal prison if convicted as charged.

Prosecutors probed Megahed's Web surfing today, a history they say intertwined online games with fire bombs and improvised explosive devices.

Tim Tidnichny, the head of the local FBI office's forensic computer unit, testified about the Web history of one of the computers that agents seized after Megahed was arrested near Goose Creek, S.C., in 2007.

Some of the topics sought out on the computer, Tidnichny said, included potassium nitrate, nitroglycerin, thermite, incendiary device, improvised explosive device and the Mark 77 fire bomb.

Under cross-examination, the agent said those searches were commingled with ones for cougars – both animal and automobile – the canonization of saints, the fall of Constantinople, online games and e-mails.

Tidnichny introduced records showing the Web sites were visited for seconds.

Defense attorneys rested their case today. Tidnichny was the only rebuttal witness.

The defense maintains Megahed had no knowledge of devices his friend, Ahmed Mohamed, had placed in the trunk of the car they used for a road trip. Moreover, the defense maintains the devices were homemade model rockets meant for entertainment, not destruction.

Megahed and Mohamed were arrested Aug. 4, 2007, after a traffic stop when deputies concluded the items were pipe bombs.

Prosecution experts, who said the devices were not pipe bombs, described them as "low explosives."

Defense witnesses said the devices were poor attempts at making rockets.

Mohamed, also a former USF student, is serving 15 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to helping terrorists by posting on YouTube a video in which he demonstrates how to detonate a bomb with a remote-controlled toy.

Reporter Tom Brennan can be reached at (813) 259-7698.

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