The Theodore Levin Federal U.S. Courthouse in Detroit, where lawyers on Feb. 16, 2016 revealed intense details of an FBI investigation that involved an undercover agent posing as a 19-year-old Detroit from Iraq who sympathized as ISIS while communicating with a Dearborn Heights man who fantasized about attacking a church. (Tanya Moutzalias | MLive.com)

Update: Grand jury: No terrorism charge against man who fantasized about church attack

DETROIT, MI -- A court-appointed attorney for a man accused of fantasizing about attacking a church argued Tuesday that the FBI seduced and manipulated its way through a terrorism investigation that produced no actual terrorism charges.

Khalil Abu-Rayyan, of Dearborn Heights, is charged with illegal firearm and marijuana possession.

The 21-year-old has not been charged with crimes directly related terrorism, but the complaint filed against him in federal court included allegations of threats made to a Detroit church congregation and a Dearborn police officer.

Attorney Todd Shanker of the Federal Defender Office during a detention hearing Tuesday revealed that the undercover FBI agent who gathered disturbing text messages from Abu-Rayyan was posing as a 19-year-old Detroit woman from Iraq who sympathized with ISIS after having relatives killed by Shia militias.

Shanker claimed the agent feigned romantic interest in Abu-Rayyan, who responded with "whatever she wanted to hear."

"They took advantage of this young man," Shanker argued. "... He never took any substantial steps toward hurting anybody."

But the FBI documented disturbing social media postings from Abu-Rayyan "long before any undercover agent became involved," said prosecuting attorney Ronald Waterstreet of the U.S. attorney's office.

Abu-Rayyan does not dispute that in July 2015, he expressed enthusiasm via Twitter for extremely violent footage of a killing spree perpetrated by ISIS, writing that the images "made my day," and re-posting the video.

"Khalil feels horribly about this," his attorney said. "It's awful material -- no question, but nothing in here rises to the level of probably cause for terrorism charges."

The FBI had been watching his social media activity since May 2015, because of what federal agents called "increasingly violent threats he has made to others about committing acts of terror and martyrdom -- including brutal acts against police officers, churchgoers and others -- on behalf of the foreign terrorist organization Islamic State of Iraq and Levant."

The undercover agent began communicating with him via text months later, after he bought a .22-caliber revolver on Oct. 5, 2015 in Dearborn Heights, and was arrested two days later when police found the gun and marijuana in his car during a Dearborn traffic stop.

Shanker said the arrest devastated his family, leaving Abu-Rayyan ashamed and in a mentally disturbed state.

"He was a very depressed and he was very vulnerable at that time," Shanker said.

Waterstreet read a number of intensely violent descriptions of crimes Abu-Rayyan expressed fantasies about in texts to the agent, including an expressed desire to "shoot up" a large Detroit church with an assault rifle.

"I would have killed every last one of them, especially the women and children," he wrote. "... I would have shown no mercy. It would have been a blood bath."

He told the agent he didn't carry out the attack because his father found and confiscated his rifle.

Shanker said Abu-Rayyan's father denied ever coming across a rifle, and investigators never found an assault rifle in a search of the family's property.

Waterstreet also revealed communications with the undercover agent that indicated Abu-Rayyan is mentally ill.

"Shaytan (Satan) is talking to me," Abu-Rayyan told the FBI agent in a text message, according to Waterstreet.

When the agent asked what the devil was saying to him, Abu-Rayyan responded: "I don't want to say. It's too evil... He talks to me every night ever since I left jail... He tells me to burn people alive, tie them up, cut out their tongues... I think because my parents divorced I'm like this... I think I do need help, because I want to do bad things to people."

Waterstreet asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Steven Whalen to order an examination of mental competency, which could have delayed the detention hearing.

But Whalen declined to order a mental examination after Shanker said his client understands the charges and court proceedings against him, and is capable of assisting in his defense.

Abu-Rayyan appeared to be of sound mind during the hearing.

"I'm here for possession of a firearm while being an unlawful user of marijuana," Abu-Rayyan said when the judge asked him if he knew why he was in court.

Shanker claimed Abu-Rayyan's texts to the agent were attempts to impress a person he viewed as a love interest, to whom he expressed suicidal thoughts, and, on multiple occasions, proposed marriage.

"Whenever he tried to say he did not want to hurt anyone, it was met with silence or, basically, contempt," Shanker said.

"She would say 'You're a fraud. You're not who you said you were.'"

After one such occasion in December, Shanker said, communication between the two stopped, until the agent contacted Abu-Rayyan in a Twitter message containing an image of a broken heart and the question: "Why are you abandoning me?"

"And so it goes," Shanker said. "It continued at that point... He's seduced. He's manipulated. And they tried to radicalize him."

He said that on the night before federal authorities arrested Abu-Rayyan on Feb. 4, he texted the undercover agent: "I don't want to hurt anybody."

Shanker asked the judge to release Abu-Rayyan on bond pending trial, with a GPS tether and under the watch of his father.

"This family," Shanker said, "they are so anti-ISIS, I don't even know to describe it... They are so disgusted... This is not what they believe."

But Whalen ordered Abu-Rayyan held without bond, pending trial, pointing out that his disturbing Twitter activity pre-dated his contact with the FBI, and finding that he could not reasonably ensure the safety of the community if Abu-Rayyan was released.

"It speaks to a propensity for radicalization that we often see with young men," Whalen said.

Even if Abu-Rayyan was only trying to impress the person he thought was a 19-year-old admirer, "there was a real readiness," Whalen said.

"There was an expression of an intent to harm the officer (who arrested him in October), and there was the relish with which he views and likes ISIS videos," the judge said.

"... Whether or not the undercover agent went off the rails... we can have another conversation about that later... This may all be a bunch of baloney... I feel bad for his family."

Abu-Rayyan asked the judge at the end of the hearing if he could hug his father before being taken away in handcuffs, but the judge deferred to the U.S. marshal in charge of his detainment, who wouldn't allow it.

A preliminary examination was set for Thursday.