USA: Four men convicted in plot to bomb synagogues

Defense lawyers said ... that Mr. Cromitie and the other men were reluctant participants and they argued entrapment. The lawyers concentrated on painting Mr. Hussain as a liar and a manipulator, who coaxed impoverished men.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit: The New York Times
By Kareem Fahim | October 18, 2010

Four men accused of planting bombs outside synagogues in the Bronx and plotting to fire missiles at military planes were convicted on Monday, in a case that was widely seen as an important test of the entrapment defense.

A jury of six women and five men in Federal District Court in Manhattan deliberated for eight days.

The four defendants – Onta Williams, Laguerre Payen, James Cromitie and David Williams IV – face up to life in prison. Prosecutors said the men, who all lived in Newburgh, N.Y., willingly cooperated with an informer working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation who posed as a terrorist and supplied the men with inert bombs and Stinger missile tubes.


On May 20, 2009, the men were arrested in the Riverdale section of the Bronx after they planted the bombs in cars outside two synagogues.

The authorities said that they also planned to travel to Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, north of New York City, to fire missiles at military transport planes.

Over the course of the nearly eight-week trial, prosecutors relied on recordings of conversations between the informer, Shahed Hussain, and the defendants. Most of the recordings featured Mr. Cromitie, the first of the defendants to meet the informer, and by far the most talkative. In conversations filled with bravado, Mr. Cromitie made anti-Semitic statements and talked about committing violent acts. But he also voiced doubts about his intentions.

Defense lawyers said those doubts proved that Mr. Cromitie and the other men were reluctant participants and they argued entrapment. The lawyers concentrated on painting Mr. Hussain as a liar and a manipulator, who coaxed impoverished men towards a kind of violence to which they were not predisposed, a requirement of the entrapment defense. The strategy has never been successful in terrorism cases since 9/11, experts say.

The jury deliberations stalled at one point, when jurors revealed they had seen evidence that was not introduced at trial – including a transcript that the judge had called inadmissible. But the judge, Colleen McMahon, refused a request by the defense lawyers for a mistrial. She dismissed a juror who had seen the inadmissible transcript, and asked the other jurors to resume their deliberations.



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