The four Newburgh men busted for coldly plotting to blow up Bronx synagogues in 2009 lost their appeals today and will have their convictions stand.
James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams, and Laguerre Payan were arrested in 2009 for a plan to fire a Stinger missile at U.S. military targets and to bomb several Riverdale synagogues with ball bearing packed explosives.
In their appeal, the ragtag crew claimed that they had no designs on terror before an FBI agent posing as a wealthy Pakistani muslim began visiting their upstate mosque and promised cash and prizes in exchange for a successful terror attack.
But a Manhattan appeals court upheld their convictions today after three of four judges found that they were not entrapped.
One dissenting jurist found that Cromitie – described in the decision as “comically incompetent” – had little interest in radicalism before meeting the government agent and was entrapped in the scheme.
Despite that opinion, the convictions of all the men were affirmed and they face 25 years each in prison.