A federal judge concluded four men from Newburgh would never have planned to bomb synagogues or fire missiles at planes without a push from a shady FBI informant.
In the end, however, the Newburgh Four doomed themselves through their own words and actions, the judge said.
U.S. District Court Judge Colleen McMahon denied the defendants’ motions for a new trial.
James Cromitie, David Williams, Laguerre Payen and Onta Williams had asked McMahon to set aside their October conviction on terrorism charges. The four were arrested on May 9, 2009, in the Bronx after they planted what they thought were bombs in front of a synagogue and Jewish Community Center. They had also planned to shoot down planes with Stinger missiles at Stewart Air National Guard Base.
Defense attorneys had argued the FBI created the scheme and produced the criminals to carry it out. McMahon didn’t disagree.
“Indeed, after reviewing the record again, I am left with the firm conviction that if the Government had simply kept an eye on Cromitie and moved on to other investigations, nothing like the events of May 9, 2009 would ever have occurred,” she wrote.
“Furthermore, it is troubling, for many months, the Government dangled what had to be almost irresistible temptation in front of an impoverished man from what I have come (after literally dozens of cases) to view as the saddest and most dysfunctional community in the South District of New York,” McMahon wrote.
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Attorney Susanne Brody, who represented Onta Williams, said defense lawyers were struggling to figure out how McMahon could agree with them on so many points but ultimately rule against them.
“I don’t get it,” Brody said in an interview Wednesday. “It’s like we won the battle but lost the war.”
Brody promised they would appeal.
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