NEWBURGH, N.Y. — To his Uncle Richard, Onta Williams is passive to a fault, too weak-willed to defy men at the local mosque who urged him to shun his uncle, who is gay. To his neighbors, James Cromitie is a "cool dude," a Muslim who prayed regularly but also joined their beery chat sessions and never uttered a hateful word.
But to prosecutors, Williams and Cromitie are homegrown terrorists who, working with two other men, spent nearly a year formulating a plot to blow up Jewish centers in the New York City suburb of Riverdale and shoot a military plane over blue-collar Newburgh in the Hudson River Valley.
Williams, 32, and Cromitie, 55 -- along with codefendants David Williams, 28, and Laguerre Payen, 27 -- appeared in federal court Thursday on charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction in the U.S. and conspiracy to acquire and use an antiaircraft missile. They were arrested late Wednesday outside a synagogue they allegedly targeted.
Prosecutors called it the latest in a string of homegrown terrorism plots hatched after Sept. 11. The case is likely to energize opponents of President Obama's argument that the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be closed and that its inmates should be sent elsewhere -- some to the U.S.
"It's hard to envision a more chilling plot," Assistant U.S. Atty. Eric Snyder said in court Thursday. He described all four suspects as "eager to bring death to Jews."
"It shows how real the threat is from homegrown terrorists," said Rep. Peter T. King of New York, the senior Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee.
The indictment described the four men as seeking to avenge the deaths of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, and driven by a hatred of Jews.
Cromitie, the alleged ringleader, first began discussing the plan in June after meeting an FBI informant at the Masjid Al-Ikhlas mosque in Newburgh, according to the charges. He said he felt ties to Afghanistan because his parents had lived there before he was born, and he expressed interest in joining Jaish-e- Mohammed, a Pakistan-based group labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S.
He described the World Trade Center as "the best target" and lamented that it already had been destroyed. After months of research, he settled on a Jewish community center and nearby synagogue, because quiet Riverdale would be "a piece of cake" to attack, he allegedly told the informant.
