3 of ‘Newburgh Four’ convicted in 2009 New York synagogue bombing plot to be released, judge rules while blaming FBI
Three of the four Muslim converts convicted of a post-9/11 plot to bomb New York synagogues and shoot down planes were ordered to be released from prison by a judge who declared their 25-year sentences “unduly harsh and unjust” — and blamed the FBI for radicalizing them.
Onta Williams, David Williams and Laguerre Payen — three of the four men who became known as the “Newburgh Four” — were granted their request for compassionate release by US District Judge Colleen McMahon on Thursday.
In her ruling, McMahon slammed the FBI’s sting operation that snared the men, whom she wrote were “hapless, easily manipulated and penurious petty criminals” that were set up by the feds and their unreliable informant.
“The real lead conspirator was the United States,” McMahon wrote.
It was “heinous” of the men to agree to participate in what she called the government’s “made-for-TV move,” she wrote, but added that “the sentence was the product of a fictitious plot to do things that these men had never remotely contemplated, and that were never going to happen.”
She blasted the government for using “a villain” of an informant “to troll among the poorest and weakest of men for ‘terrorists’ who might prove susceptible to an offer of much-needed cash in exchange for committing a faux crime.”
McMahon slashed the three’s 25-year mandatory minimum sentence to just time served plus 90 days. They will be released in three months to give probation officers time to find suitable housing for Payen, who suffers from a mental disability.
“We are tremendously pleased that our clients are on their way home — even if it’s 14 years too late,” said Amith R. Gupta, part of a group of lawyers representing Payen and the Williamses — who are not related.
Gupta described the three as destitute men “entrapped for their race, religion, and working-class backgrounds by a government looking to spread fear of Muslims and justify bloated budgets.”
The fourth man, James Cromitie, wasn’t part of the compassionate release request and is expected to complete his prison sentence in 2030.
Cromitie’s attorney, Kerry Lawrence, told the Associated Press he intends to speak with him about pursuing similar action.
“I’m confident he would be entitled to relief for the same reasons articulated by Judge McMahon for the other defendants,” Lawrence said.
The four were arrested in May 20, 2009, and charged with plotting to bomb two Jewish synagogues in the Bronx and shoot missiles at military supply planes at Stewart International Airport.
Prosecutors portrayed Cromitie as the ringleader of the “chilling plot” who recruited the other three and was loyal to a Pakistani terrorist group — though the government later decided not to present any evidence about foreign terrorist organizations at trial.
The defendants had spent months scouting targets in the heavily Jewish Bronx neighborhood of Riverdale and securing what they thought were explosives and a surface-to-air missile, aiming to shoot down planes, prosecutors argued.
They were arrested while planting FBI-supplied fake bombs outside the Riverdale Temple and the Riverdale Jewish Center.
From the start, relatives said the four men were down on their luck and needed money.
According to a 2014 HBO film about the case, Cromitie was a Walmart employee and drug dealer; David Williams was a part-time student with a past drug rap who needed cash to get treatment for his brother’s liver cancer; Payen, a Haitian immigrant; and Onta Williams, a drug dealer who had served time. None of the four men, all broke, even owned a car.
They were promised a payment of $250,000 by FBI informant Shahed Hussain for a successful mission. All four men agreed to help under one condition: nobody gets hurt, David Williams said on FBI hidden-video footage.
Defense attorneys claimed that Hussain riled up the men with rhetoric, chose the targets and provided the bombs and missiles.
The defense portrayed Hussain as a manipulator trying to please the government after his own legal troubles. He had been convicted of fraud for helping illegal aliens get driver’s licenses and desperately trying to avoid deportation, had turned FBI informant in 2002.
Jurors deliberated for eight days before convicting the men in 2010. Three years later, they lost an appeal.
Hussain also worked with the FBI on other stings, including one that targeted an Albany pizza shop owner and an imam — and involved a loan using money from a fake missile purchase. Both men, who said they were tricked, were convicted of money laundering and conspiring to aid a terrorist group.
Hussain was in the news again after one of his limo company’s limousines crashed in upstate New York, killing 20 people in 2018.
The limo had failed a safety inspection a month before the crash and the slain driver didn’t have a commercial license. Hussain’s son Nauman Hussain, who operated the company, was sentenced to 15 years in prison earlier this year for negligent homicide and manslaughter.
With Post wires
