Four men convicted of plot to blow up New York synagoguesFour men face life in prison after being convicted of plotting to blow up synagogues in New York and shoot down military planes. The group - James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen - were caught in an FBI sting operation.
Shahed Hussain, an undercover informant, was hired by officers in 2008 to infiltrate a mosque in Newburgh, about an hour north of New York.
A court heard that there he hatched a plan with Cromitie, 44, to blow up synagogues in the Bronx area of New York with remote-controlled bombs.
The other men, aged between 28 and 24, were recruited to the scheme and planned to shoot down cargo planes with heat-seeking missiles.
The men were seen in secretly filmed video footage practising with a missile launcher and praying together in a warehouse in Connecticut two weeks before the planned attack.
They were arrested last year after planting bombs, which they did not know were FBI-supplied fakes, in the Riverdale section of the Bronx...
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Jury convicts four men in New York synagogue bomb plot after 'Big Brother' style surveillanceFour men have today been found guilty of 30 out of 32 counts stemming from the May 2009 plot to bomb two Bronx synagogues and shoot down military aircraft at a National Guard airbase in Newburgh, New York.
James Cromitie had been accused of scheming with a government informant he met at a mosque in Newburgh but the plot was foiled by a perfectly executed FBI sting.
Prosecutors said Cromitie recruited the three co-defendants David Williams, 29, Onta Williams,29, and Laguerre Payen,28, to fire heat-seeking missiles at cargo planes and blow them out of the sky.
In what was was called a terrorism version of Big Brother, the accused architects of the bomb plot were followed and listened to by law enforcement officials at all times.
The Muslim converts were under constant surveillance from early on in their plans until they were busted by cops last year.
The sting apparently never put New Yorkers at risk but the defendants 'thought this was real - real bombs, real missiles - every step of the way', according to Assistant U.S. Attorney David Raskin.
The federal court jury in Manhattan deliberated for eight days before finding the four defendants guilty of charges including conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and conspiracy to acquire and use anti-aircraft missiles to kill U.S. officers and employees.
Cromite and David Williams were convicted of all eight counts, while Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen were convicted of seven out of the eight charges.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement that homegrown terrorism was a 'serious threat' and added: 'We are safer today as a result of these convictions.
He said the defendants agreed to plant bombs and use missiles 'they thought were very real weapons of terrorism'.
The trial featured 13 days of testimony by undercover mole, Shahed Hussain who met Cromitie at a mosque north of New York City.
The paid FBI informant helped make hundreds of hours of audio and video tapes between the terrorists which were given to officials and used as evidence.
The defence had argued that the government entrapped their clients but the prosecution were determined to avoid the complication that has derailed previous terror cases and took necessary steps to avoid that.
Authorities had bugged the Newburgh home of apparent ringleader Cromitie, the other three defendants as well as some of their haunts...
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