NEWBURGH, N.Y., May 22, 2009
Terror Suspects Are Jailhouse Converts
4 Accused Of N.Y. Bomb Plot Had Records For Purse-Snatching, Drugs, Other Petty Crimes Before Converting To Islam
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In this courtroom sketch, terror suspects James Cromitie (right), David Williams (second from left), and Onta Williams (left), and Cromitie's lawyer Vincent Briccetti (second from right) are seen in a courthouse in White Plains, N.Y., May 21, 2009. (AP Photo/Elizabeth Williams)
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David Williams also known as Daoud is led by police officers from a federal building in New York, early on May 21, 2009, after being arrested on charges related to a bombing plot in the Bronx. (AP Photo/Robert Mecea)
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James Cromitie, right, is led by police officers from a federal building in New York, early on May 21, 2009, after being arrested on charges related to a bombing plot in the Bronx. (AP Photo/Robert Mecea)
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Onta Williams also known as Hamza is led by police officers from a federal building in New York, May 21, 2009, after being arrested by the FBI on charges related to a plot to bomb targets in the Bronx section of New York. (AP Photo/Robert Mecea)
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Scene of the Riverdale FBI sting just a minute after the event, as taped by a neighbor from a fifth floor window, May 20, 2009. (CBS)
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Play CBS Video Video Homegrown Terror Threat Jailhouse Islam conversions are eyed for their role in a recent terror plot on U.S. soil, reports Kelly Wallace.
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Video Terror Plot Foiled In N.Y. "Caught On Tape:" In exclusive video provided to CBS News an eyewitness to the arrests of the suspects plotting to blow up a synagogue and attack a plane at Stewart Air National Guard Base videotaped footage of their arrests in Riverside, N.Y.
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Video Orr On The Bronx Terror Plot Bob Orr discusses the elaborate plan to thwart the bombing of a Bronx synagogue and the charges which await the terrorists.
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Interactive Global Terror Major terrorist organizations, the FBI's most wanted and facts and photos from recent attacks.
One is a petty criminal who spent a day in 2002 snatching purses and shooting at people with a BB gun from an SUV. His lawyer calls him "intellectually challenged."
Three have histories of drug convictions, one of them for selling narcotics in a school zone. The man prosecutors portrayed as the instigator of the scheme said he smoked pot the day he planned to blow up the temples.
They went to Wal-Mart for cameras to photograph their targets and had to call around to various contacts to get guns, prosecutors said.
But if they sometimes seemed amateurish, the men were dangerous people fueled by their hatred for Jews and America, prosecutors said. The plotters managed to get their hands on what they thought were lethal explosives and a surface-to-air missile system, only to find out that they were inert devices supplied by the FBI in a sting operation.
"It's hard to envision a more chilling plot," assistant U.S. attorney Eric Snyder said. "These are extremely violent men."
A group of religious leaders, including rabbis, priests and an imam, were to meet Friday morning at one of the targeted synagogues, the Riverdale Jewish Center in the Bronx, to thank authorities. Rabbi Bob Kaplan of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York said the religious leaders also plan to "stand together against poisonous hatred."
With an informant's help, the FBI monitored the plot every step of the way, including with video and audio surveillance of a home in Newburgh where the conspirators gathered, according to a criminal complaint.
The arrests follow a long line of homegrown, headline-making terror plots since Sept. 11 that never came close to reality because the FBI inserted itself in early stages. Authorities have broken up plots with targets including the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Herald Square subway station in Manhattan, underground gas pipes at John F. Kennedy International Airport, the Fort Dix military base in New Jersey and tunnels underneath the Hudson River.
James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen were calm as they appeared in court Thursday, their hands shackled, to answer charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction within the U.S. and conspiracy to acquire and use anti-aircraft missiles. They did not enter pleas and were held without bail; they face life in prison if convicted.
Besides destroying the two synagogues in the heavily Jewish Riverdale section of the Bronx, they intended to shoot down planes at the Air National Guard base in Newburgh, about 50 miles north of New York City, prosecutors said.
Relatives said the defendants were struggling men who worked at places such as Wal-Mart, a landscaping company and a warehouse when they weren't behind bars. Payen's lawyer said he was on medication for schizophrenia and has "a very low borderline" IQ.
David Williams' relatives were floored by the allegations against a man they knew as a good father to his 7-year-old daughter and newborn son.
"You don't raise your children to be terrorists," said Aahkiyaah Cummings, his aunt. "I don't know that guy that was arrested."
Just four years ago, Williams, now 28, told a parole board that prison was a wake-up call after his conviction on drug and weapons charges - drugs he said he sold because he was making only $150 a week in his job.
Onta Williams, 32, and Cromitie have also served prison sentences for drug convictions - Cromitie said in court he had used marijuana as recently as Wednesday. He said he was 55, though law enforcement records give his age as 44.
Payen, 27, did time for attempted assault - in 2002, he and others fired a BB gun out an SUV window, hitting two people in the head. He snatched purses from two women later the same day, said state Division of Parole spokeswoman Heather Groll.
"He was a very nice guy. I wouldn't think he was like a terrorist. He was very nice and polite, very nice," neighbor Arielle Harvey told CBS Station WCBS.
Payen appears to be a Haitian citizen, while the other three are Americans. The Williamses are not related.
Jailhouse Conversions
New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said he believed the defendants knew each other from their time behind bars. Relatives said Payen, David Williams and Onta Williams were introduced to Islam in prison - a trend in prisons around the country in recent years.
"The Onta I know wouldn't do something like this, but the new Onta, yeah," said Richard Williams, an uncle. "He wasn't raised this way. All this happened when he became a Muslim in prison."
Jailhouse conversion has long been part of prison culture, but now there's a movement to turn inmates into religious and political extremists, with some "not only converted potentially to Islam, but who are being radicalized," said CBS News national security analyst Juan Zarate.
A 2007 Indiana State University study estimates that as many as 175,000 inmates of American prisons converted to Islam since 9/11, said CBS News correspondent Kelly Wallace
"I think what you have here is a volatile admixture of radical religious thought combined with violent extremism," Zarate said on The Early Show. "And within the prison walls, it becomes a really dangerous mix."
Zarate says these homegrown terrorists aren't as sophisticated as al Qaeda.
"With al Qaeda you have high degree of intent and high capacity," he said. "With these homegrown terrorists that we've seen at least to date, we have high intent, low capacity."
Richard Williams said his nephew, who loaded tractor-trailers at a warehouse, had been shaken by his mother's death in 2006 and a separation from his wife. She has custody of his three children.
Payen was apparently staying in a rundown house that neighbors say was known as a home for parolees. Penniless and jobless, he had been fighting deportation and seeking custody of his 3-year-old son, said Hamin Rashada, an assistant imam at the Masjid al-Ikhlas mosque, where authorities say the informant first met Cromitie in June 2008.
Cromitie was burning with anger about the U.S. war in Afghanistan, where his parents had lived before he was born, according to the criminal complaint. He told the informant he was interested in jihad and "doing something to America" and was crestfallen that "the best target (the World Trade Center) was hit already," the complaint said.
In the same conversation, Cromitie said: "I hate those mother--- , those f--- Jewish b--- .... I would like to get (destroy) a synagogue," according to the complaint.
In one conversation, Cromitie said he longed to shoot Jews in the head as they walked on the street near a synagogue, the informant told authorities. In another conversation with the informant, Onta Williams said the U.S. military was killing Muslims, "so if we kill them here with IEDs and Stingers, it is equal," according to court papers.
A woman who answered the phone at a Bronx listing for several of Cromitie's relatives said she didn't want to speak about him and hung up. No one answered the door at his Newburgh address.
A neighbor told WCBS that Cromitie was "a nice guy, a great guy, I honestly can't say anything bad about him."
Cromitie told the informant last July that he wanted to join Jaish-e-Mohammed, a Pakistani terrorist group with which the informant claimed to be involved, the complaint said. Authorities say Jaish set up training camps in Afghanistan under the Taliban, and several senior operatives were close to Osama bin Laden.
By December, Cromitie was asking the informant to supply explosives and surface-to-air missiles. The suspects obtained the weapons - not knowing they were disabled - earlier this month, according to the complaint.
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- susansohelit and sbbm2009,both of you need to think about what you are saying. ican tell that susan has never been to prison because she thinks that imams are allowed to talk hate and not be fired. prison imams are hired and paid by the state! and sbbm2009,who gave you the right to convict folks before they even get to court? you don't know or have all of the facts yet! have you forgotten how many people have been freed from death row in recent years because they were found to be innocent! too many! if you can get a conviction and send an innocent person to deathrow,something is very wrong with the system. innocent until proven guilty. is'nt that the american way?
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- here you go again gravyboat45, john muhammad was not a muslim. he was with the nation of islam! they are not muslims for many reasons,too numerous to go into here! you would'nt know a real muslim from a martian! i can talk to a person for five minutes and tell you whether that person is not a muslim,a deviant,and if they are muslim,what level of knowledge they are at! did you start to read the books that i mentioned? no! it's just so much easier to listen to fox and cnn and the rest of the rest of the mainstream media morons,is'nt it. except when you comment on islam,to the real muslims, you sound like an idiot!
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- this is one of the reasons that no manmade laws will ever be as just as sharia law! the laws that started with moses(as) and continued on to islam. just like this so-called informant was not allowed in the masjid,he would never be allowed to assist of testify in an islamic court of law! why?, because a known liar is barred from the court for life,he had a bad reputation,and he was involved in a dubious activity! so no jailhouse snitches,informants with crimnal backgrounds, paid informants,thieves,pimps,postitutes,and the rest of the sordid characters that are used on a daily basis would all be barred for life from ever testifying in an islamic court. it is much better to listen,watch,and wait, than to bring tainted testimony into a court to convict. if you don't think this has any validity,how many people have been set free from deathrow because they were found to be innocent? too many! we need to wait and see what the facts are before we convict folks! and we need to make sure we are being presented with facts and not fabications!
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- These 4 Community Organizers should have first sought out the ACORN money which ACORN people with integrity report is missing! Millions right down a rathole! OUR money!
Anyway, had they followed Bill Ayers example and taliban leaders, they would have got their hands on The Money first, then suckered others to take all the chances! The risks. get other suckers to put on the old suicide vest!
These Community organizers represent others like them at large; Those who felt the tingle up the leg. - Reply to this comment
- Da-mn you people should quit your jobs and sell your meager belongings and immediatley fly to washington . They have been waiting for the wisdom of such scholarly people to straighten things out. I think you are the bunch to get it done!How much for that three bedroom barn you are living in?
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- Unfortunately-we're going to see a lot more of this happening. People are frustrated with how this country operates...it's understandable-look up the American Prison Industry...good people are serving sentences over the dumbest things, how can anyone expect them to not go over the deep end? Not saying it's right, not by far...but just as Obama said-Gitmo created more terrorists than it ever detained...so is our Judicial System. They're creating hatred that can't be stopped.
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- See, ya just can't keep rattlesnakes - - they'll kill you - - it's their nature.
Our society doesn't believe in death, only storage of misfits & mental incompetents - with training among themselves about how to live in society - - out of sight -out of mind, don't bother with the reality, just push facts aside and pray for deliverance.
Be good - - and gentle - - and turn the other cheek - - oh, & give 'em some money to help them get by - Reply to this comment
- The Feds stopped this plot without any use of torture.
Don't tell Cheney. The bad news might give him a heart atack.
...On second thought, somebody tell Cheney right away. - Reply to this comment
- "The man prosecutors portrayed as the instigator of the scheme said he smoked pot the day he planned to blow up the temples."
I thought that stuff was supposed to mellow you out.
Good thing he wasn't drinking Budweiser. - Reply to this comment
- This is a Joke Bush is out of office we no longer have to worry about terrorists. That was all fabricated by Bush and Chaney. Now that Obama is our Leader we do not have to worry about this kind of stuff.
Posted by dwilson59 at 3:53 PM : May 22, 2009
You think blowing up a synagogue is a "joke?"
You were being sarcastic, right? - Reply to this comment
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