4 men convicted in synagogue bombing plot

Rejecting claims that the FBI entrapped four upstate men in a plot to bomb two synagogues in Riverdale, a Manhattan federal jury Monday convicted the defendants of conspiracy and other crimes despite evidence that an informant offered them money.

The verdict followed a seven-week trial. Defendants James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen all will face up to life in prison at their sentencing on March 24 for a plot that also involved plans to blow up planes at Stewart International Airport in Newburgh with Stinger missiles.

All four men were recruited into the plot over 11 months by informant Shahed Hussain, a Pakistani emigre posing as a rich foreigner with terrorist connections named "Maqsood."

He offered them $5,000 each, and kept after plot leader Cromitie when his interest waned.

But the entrapment defense has never succeeded in a terrorism case. Prosecutors argued that the four were "predisposed."

In the FBI sting, audio and video recordings caught the men acquiring what they thought were two Stingers, and planting what they believed were live bombs outside the Riverdale Temple and the Riverdale Jewish Center.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara lauded the verdicts in a statement. "Homegrown terrorism is a serious threat, and today's convictions affirm our commitment to do everything we can to protect against it," he said.

The defense had argued that the government was investing resources in inventing a crime that the four defendants could never have imagined pulling off without "Maqsood." Lawyers for some of the defendants immediately pledged to appeal.

"This is a miscarriage of justice just like this whole trial and case," said Susanne Brody, one of the defense lawyers for Onta Williams.

The case began in June 2008, when informant Hussein, who had been trolling local mosques looking for men with terrorist leanings, met Cromitie at a mosque in Newburgh.

He testified that Cromitie expressed an interest in martyrdom, and later spewed anti-Semitic sentiments.

The courtship lasted 11 months before Hussein could get Cromitie to sign on to a concrete plan, and recruit three associates as "lookouts." All four men were Muslim converts.

At one point Hussein pretended to have left town and stopped returning messages left by the informant.

"It confirms that an entrapment defense just won't work in a terrorism case," said Karen Greenberg, director of the Center on Law and Security at New York University Law School. "This was the strongest case yet, and it didn't work - probably in part because they actually planted what they thought was a bomb."