In an interesting turn of events, a federal judge has released individuals from prison who were convicted of participating in a conspiracy to carry out terrorist acts against Jewish synagogues and other targets.
The alleged plot was supposedly foiled by the FBI. But, according to the judge’s ruling, the Bureau was more involved in concocting the scheme than actually stopping it.
The news is the latest revealing how the FBI has been weaponized against certain groups of people, orchestrating faux terrorist plots in order to get arrests and give the appearance that they are working to stop actual terrorism.
A federal judge on Friday ordered that a New York man be freed from prison because a “most unsavory” government informant had duped him into an “F.B.I.-orchestrated conspiracy” focused on attacking an upstate Air Force base and Jewish sites in the Bronx.
The scathingly worded decision by the judge, Colleen McMahon, granting the man, James Cromitie, “compassionate release” was the latest twist in the case of four Hudson Valley men who were convicted of terrorism charges in 2010 despite arguing that they had been entrapped.
In July, Judge McMahon, of Federal District Court in Manhattan, ordered the release of Mr. Cromitie’s co-defendants, Laguerre Payen, David Williams and Onta Williams, for the same reasons. The men, the so-called Newburgh Four, had each been sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2011.
As with the others, the judge’s order called for Mr. Cromitie’s sentence to be reduced to time served plus 90 days. The order did not reverse his conviction.
Judge McMahon, in her ruling, noted that “nothing about the crimes of conviction” had been of the “defendants’ own making.”
Mr. Cromitie was portrayed at trial as the key player in the bogus plot, having been recruited by Shahed Hussain, a longtime F.B.I. informant whom Judge McMahon called “most unsavory” and a “villain.” Mr. Hussain later gained notoriety as the owner of a limousine company that rented a flawed vehicle to a group of partygoers in 2018, leading to 20 deaths.
In the Newburgh case, Judge McMahon wrote, Mr. Hussain’s role was to infiltrate upstate mosques and identify potential terrorists. Mr. Cromitie, who met Mr. Hussain in a mosque parking lot, “pretended to be” a potential terrorist despite actually being a “small time grifter and petty drug dealer with no history of violence,” the judge wrote.
The fake scheme also involved plans to fire Stinger missiles at U. S. military aircraft, and the judge noted that the feds concocted the scheme in a way that made sure the men got "long prison terms."
In addition to the Bronx targets, the plan involved firing Stinger missiles at military planes at Stewart Air Force Base near Newburgh.
“The F.B.I. invented the conspiracy; identified the targets; manufactured the ordnance,” Judge McMahon wrote, adding that officials had “federalized” the charges — ensuring long prison terms — by driving several of the men into Connecticut to “view the ‘bombs.’”
This story is reminiscent of the case involving men seeking to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. News of the plot, which was also allegedly foiled by the FBI, shocked the nation until it was revealed that the FBI engaged in the same conduct, orchestrating the plot and encouraging these men to participate.
If you’ve followed the saga of the supposed plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, you’ve been privy to a variety of twists and turns over the last year or so. Those include the high probability that the FBI orchestrated the entire thing to entrap people and reinforce a politicized narrative, i.e. that the “right” is a domestic terror threat to Democrats. That fit right into what was being pushed prior to the 2020 election.
Sure enough, several different pieces of evidence emerged showing that FBI agents, including one who ended up being arrested for physically abusing his wife, were central to organizing and goading vulnerable, disturbed men to go along with the plot. Why did that happen? Again, it sure feels like politics was at the center of everything.
Now, we’ve got the verdicts in the trial of two of the men charged over the ordeal, and they represent a massive blow to the FBI’s credibility.
READ MORE: Massive Blow to the FBI After Gretchen Whitmer Kidnapping Verdict Drops
The Bureau also used this tactic during the George Floyd riots, sending a violent felon to infiltrate groups of activists protesting against police brutality. In this case, the FBI tried unsuccessfully to get key members to carry out an assassination and other acts of violence.
The issues surrounding these cases center on the ethical and legal boundaries of sting operations conducted by the Bureau and other law enforcement agencies. The objective of these agencies should be to prevent crime, not to create criminals. Unfortunately, it appears that, in many ways, the FBI is focused more on the latter than the former.
The judge’s ruling underscores a troubling pattern in which individuals who are marginalized by their socioeconomic status are lured into plots by FBI agents seeking to get another conviction under their belts. Goading these people into committing crimes they might not otherwise commit, the agency shows a disturbing penchant for ruining people’s lives in order to make itself appear to be more valuable.
