Last ‘Newburgh Four’ Prisoner to File for Release

Police stand guard outside of Riverdale Temple following the apparent foiling of a terrorist plot in the Bronx borough of New York City on May 21, 2009. Four suspects were arrested on charges of plotting to detonate explosives near a synagogue and Jewish center in the Bronx borough of New York City and to shoot down military planes located at the New York Air National Guard Base at Stewart Airport in Newburgh, New York, after a year-long police and FBI sting supplied the suspects with inactive explosives and missile. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The fourth member of the “Newburgh Four,” James Cromitie, a third shift worker at Walmart who was portrayed by officials as the ringleader of the group, is optimistic that his release will come soon, according to his attorney Kerry Lawrence.

“I’ll be filing within the next 30 days for his release,” Mr. Lawrence told the Epoch Times. “I’m confident he would be entitled to the same relief for the same reasons articulated by Judge McMahon for the other defendants.”

At the trial for Mr. Cromitie, U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon portrayed him as incapable of masterminding the elaborate plot, saying, “[The government] created acts of terrorism out of his fantasies of bravado and bigotry, and then made those fantasies come true ... Only the government could have made a terrorist out of Mr. Cromitie, whose buffoonery is positively Shakespearean in scope.”

A spokesperson for the FBI was not immediately available to comment to the Epoch Times.

Three of the four men convicted more than a decade ago in a high profile post-9/11 terrorism “sting” were ordered to be released from prison by a judge after her ruling that “the real lead conspirator was the United States,” while the fourth convict’s freedom remained in limbo.

Recent Release

Judge McMahon wrote in her scathing 28-page order that Onta Williams, David Williams, and Laguerre Payen—three of the men known as the “Newburgh Four”—were caught up in a scheme driven by overzealous FBI agents and a “villain” of an informant.

“The FBI invented the conspiracy; identified the targets; manufactured the ordinance; federalized what would otherwise have been a state crime … and picked the day for the ‘mission,’” wrote Judge McMahon.

The arrests came on May 20, 2009 after an FBI operation alleged that the men had been plotting terrorist attacks on Jewish synagogues in and around New York City, as well as planning to shoot down National Guard planes. All four were sentenced to a mandated minimum of 25 years in federal prison. In her July 27 order, Judge McMahon reduced the sentences of three of the men to time served plus 90 days.

The trial and subsequent conviction raised red flags among criminal justice advocacy groups who saw it as a textbook case of government entrapment. The targets, bombs, missiles, as well as plans for the mission, had all been supplied by a federal informant, Shaheed Hussain, who was trying to avoid prison time for a fraud case of his own. In the months leading up to the arrest, Mr. Hussain had become known in Newburgh for driving a flashy black BMW into the poverty stricken area of New York State.

Vincent Briccetti, attorney for suspect James Cromitie, speaks with the media outside the White Plains Federal Court in White Plains, New York, on May 21, 2009. Stephen Chernin/Getty Images

Newburgh Four

The four men targeted by the informant have all been described as poor and unsophisticated. One of the suspects, Mr. Payen, was arrested in a crack house surrounded by bottles of his own urine and suffered from “severe mental illness,” according to the judge. It was later revealed that he believed Florida was a foreign country.

The informant offered to pay medical bills for another one of his targets, David Williams, after learning he had a brother who was fighting liver cancer. Mr. Hussain also offered to pay the rent and cover debts for the other men convicted in the case. In addition to supplying all the weapons, Mr. Hussain offered the men hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, expensive cars, and other incentives for their agreement to help him carry out the plot, according to the defense.

“We have always maintained that the prosecution was a witch-hunt motivated by Islamophobia,” Amith R. Gupta, part of a group of lawyers representing Payen and the Williamses (who are not related), told The Epoch Times.

“Onta, David, and Laguerre were destitute when they were targeted and entrapped for their race, religion, and working class backgrounds by a government looking to spread fear of Muslims and justify bloated budgets.”

There is no publicly disclosed FBI rule about confidential informants giving gifts to the targets of the investigation.

Judge McMahon said that while it was wrong of the men to agree to participate in what she called the government’s “made for TV movie,” she added, “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.”

“The real lead conspirator was the United States,” she added.

Mr. Gupta hopes the ruling leads to changes in how future cases are handled by law authorities.

“The fact remains that hundreds of young men and women remain behind bars as a result of FBI-manufactured sting operations in which there is little to no indication that any crime would have been committed but for the goading and manipulation of informants,” said Mr. Gupta.

“The government should not be able to prosecute individuals for government-manufactured plots without, at minimum, evidence that such plotting was underway prior to law enforcement involvement,” he said.