[NYP] Three of the four Muslim converts convicted of a post-9/11 plot to bomb New York synagogues and shoot down planes were ordered to be released from prison by a judge who declared their 25-year sentences "unduly harsh and unjust" — and blamed the FBI for radicalizing them.
Onta Williams, David Williams and Laguerre Payen — three of the four men who became known as the "Newburgh Four" — were granted their request for compassionate release by US District Judge Colleen McMahon on Thursday.
Clinton appointee
In her ruling, McMahon slammed the FBI’s sting operation that snared the men, whom she wrote were "hapless, easily manipulated and penurious petty criminals" that were set up by the feds and their unreliable informant.
"The real lead conspirator was the United States," McMahon wrote.
It was "heinous" of the men to agree to participate in what she called the government’s "made-for-TV move," she wrote, but added that "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."
| Unmentioned is the FBI informant, Pakistani Shahed Hussain, who needed FBI help dealing with his immigration fraud and other criminal fraud charges; also the ringleader he recruited, James Cromitie, seething with hate and baseless boasting, but reportedly only in it for the promised $250,000 and other goodies. His three friends were also promised money and stuff. Except for Mr. Payen, a mentally ill Haitian, the other three recruits are African-American. |
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