Four Muslims accused of trying to bomb two Bronx synagogues and shoot down military planes “are extremely violent men who eagerly embraced any opportunity” to kill Americans, a prosecutor said yesterday — as relatives revealed that the suspects became radicalized in the state prison system.
“These are people who were eager to bring death to Jews and the Jewish community,” Assistant US Attorney Eric Snyder said in White Plains federal court. “It’s hard to envision a more chilling plot.”
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One of the ex-cons, David “Daoud” Williams, was “bragging, boasting he’d shoot anyone who tried to stop him” from carrying out the terror plot Wednesday night, and eagerly anticipated watching news accounts of the attacks, Snyder said.
Williams wanted to be able to say, “I’m the one who did that; that’s my work right there,” Snyder claimed.
“In a group of extremely violent men, he stands out as more violent,” Snyder said of the shackled Williams, who snarled, mumbled answers to a judge and struggled to keep his pants from falling down during the hearing.
Williams and his co-defendants — alleged ringleader James “Abdul Rahman” Cromitie, Onta “Hamza” Williams and Laguerre “Amin” Payen — were ordered held without bail.
The men — while under extensive electronic and other surveillance for nearly a year — had obtained explosives and a surface-to-air missile they thought were real, but were really FBI-provided duds, court papers show.
A law-enforcement source said the suspects first met in a mosque in upstate Newburgh and bonded because of their common prison experience.
“He wasn’t raised this way. All this happened when he became a Muslim in prison,” said Onta Williams’ uncle, Richard Williams.
During arraignment, Cromitie kept making quizzical faces and told Judge Lisa Smith he had smoked marijuana Wednesday, before his arrest.
Snyder, the prosecutor, told Smith that David Williams, 28, on April 30 had bought a 9mm pistol for $700 from a Bloods gang member in a Brooklyn housing project while accompanied by an FBI informant. Williams allegedly later said that if the informant had not been there, he would have shot the seller to retrieve his money.
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Payen’s lawyer told the judge his client suffers from bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, and is also “intellectually challenged, with a very borderline, low intelligence quotient.”
But Snyder said surveillance video shows Payen talking “about handling and learning to use Stinger missiles” and praying for the plot’s success.
Payen looked distraught during the hearing, and had a bloodied bandage on his head, covering a cut incurred when cops smashed the windows of the SUV the suspects were in when they were busted.
They were arrested Wednesday night in The Bronx after allegedly placing a 37-pound mock bomb in the trunk of a car outside the Riverdale Temple, and two other phony bombs in another vehicle outside the Riverdale Jewish Center.
They were allegedly going to head to Stewart Airport in Newburgh 70 miles away to shoot down a New York Air National Guard plane while they detonated the Bronx bombs via cellphone at the same time.
Cops used an 18-wheel vehicle to block their SUV, being driven by the FBI informant, Shahed Hussain, and then smashed its windows.
“They were like, ‘Holy f- – -!’ ” a federal official said. “It was a look of shock and awe.”
Sources said that Hussain met Cromitie a year ago while trolling the upstate Muslim community “looking for people who are looking to do bad things.”
Posing as “a moneyman” member of the Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed, Hussain gained the trust of Cromitie, who told him he “was upset about the war” in Afghanistan, a criminal complaint said.
Cromitie also said that he was interested in going to Afghanistan and that, if he were to die a martyr, he would go to “paradise,” the complaint said. He allegedly said he was interested in joining Jaish-e-Mohammed to “do jihad.”
Cromitie allegedly enlisted the other three men in the plot.
“The best target [the World Trade Center] was hit already,” Cromitie said, according to the complaint. Later, he allegedly said, “I hate those motherf – – -ers, those f – – -ing Jewish bastards . . . I would like to get a synagogue.”
On April 24, Cromitie, David Williams and Hussain drove to Newburgh’s Air National Guard Base to search for a spot from which to fire the guided missile, and took photos.
On May 6, Hussain, Cromitie, David Williams and Payen drove to a Stamford, Conn., warehouse to retrieve the Stinger surface-to-air missile — which had been disabled — and the improvised bombs, whose C-4 plastic explosives had been rendered inert, the complaint said.
After bringing the weapons back to a Newburgh storage locker, the defendants allegedly shouted, “Allah Akbar!” Arabic for “Praise be to God.”
Additional reporting by Kevin Fasick and Jonathan Costantino