Prosecutors say that Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh, 47, a former avionics instrument system specialist in the Air Force, tried to join the militant group in January by traveling from Egypt to Turkey and then trying to cross the border into Syria.
Turkish authorities sent him back to Egypt, where he was detained and subsequently deported to the United States.
Pugh is charged with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organisation and with obstruction of justice for tampering with electronic evidence on his laptop and other devices.
If convicted, Pugh could face up to 35 years in prison.
District Judge Nicholas Garaufis told attorneys to be ready for court in July, saying he wanted a speedy trial.
"I think that an early trial is appropriate in a case such as this and you can pencil in July and start getting all of the evidence and all of the analysis taken care of," Garaufis said.
"It's March. That gives you plenty of time. I'm disinclined to stretch this out beyond the summer."
Garaufis set the next hearing for May 8.
‘Sympathised with bin Laden’
US federal agents found recent Internet searches on Pugh’s electronic devices for “borders controlled by Islamic State”. Prosecution documents say he had 180 jihadist videos on his laptop, information on crossing points into Syria and a letter to his Egyptian wife calling himself a "mujahid" or holy warrior.
His laptop in Egypt was found damaged and inoperable, his iPod wiped clean of data and his USB drives were also intentionally damaged.
Originally from Neptune, New Jersey, Pugh served in the Air Force from 1986 to 1990 and converted to Islam after moving to San Antonio, Texas, in 1998. He became “increasingly radical in his beliefs” in the following years, according to a criminal complaint filed when he was arrested in January.
Pugh was working as a mechanic for American Airlines in 2001, when a co-worker told the FBI that Pugh “sympathised with Osama bin Laden, felt that the 1998 bombings of US embassies were justified and expressed anti-American sentiment”, the complaint said.
In 2002 an associate of Pugh's told the FBI that he had expressed interest in going to Chechnya to fight.
Pugh continued working on aircraft avionics as a US Army contractor for DynCorp International in Iraq from October 2009 to March 2010, prosecutors said.
In the weeks before traveling to Egypt, he had been fired from his job as an airplane mechanic in the Middle East and had been living abroad for a year, according to prosecutors.
US intelligence officials say more than 20,000 volunteers from around the world, including more than 150 Americans, have gone to Syria to join Islamist extremists.
(BALOOGGSBLOG, FRANCE 24 with REUTERS and AFP)
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