Reporting from Newburgh, N.Y. — Four men charged with plotting to bomb New York synagogues and blow military aircraft out of the sky hoped to "bring death to Jews" and launch a holy war, prosecutors said today, as people who knew the suspects expressed astonishment at their arrests.
James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen remained in custody after appearing in federal court in White Plains, N.Y. They are charged with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction in the United States and conspiracy to acquire and use antiaircraft missiles.
Cromitie is accused of being the ringleader, who first began discussing the alleged plan in June 2008 after meeting an FBI informant at a mosque in Newburgh, a working-class city of about 100,000 on the Hudson River some 70 miles north of Manhattan.
Police and FBI agents arrested the four in an elaborate sting operation late Wednesday after the men had planted what they thought were explosives inside cars parked outside a temple and a nearby Jewish center in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, authorities said.
But it was in Newburgh -- a city of run-down brick houses and apartment buildings where residents say drugs and poverty are rife -- where officials say the men hatched the plan and spent 11 months trying to bring it to fruition.
The 13-page indictment describes an elaborate effort to obtain a surface-to-air missile system and military-grade explosives. The missile was to be used for shooting down a military plane at nearby Stewart International Airport, which is used by the New York Air National Guard and U.S. Air Force to carry troops and supplies to Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the charges. The explosives were to be hidden in cars parked outside the Riverdale temple and a Jewish center a few blocks away, and then detonated by remote control, prosecutors say.
Cromitie settled on the Riverdale targets because he felt the quiet community would be a "piece of cake" to attack, according to the indictment, which quoted the FBI informant.
The informant, described as someone who had cooperated with the FBI for several years, pretended to go along with the four as they allegedly photographed their targets, purchased what they thought was a missile system and scoped out the best spot from which to down a plane. When the time came to plant the bombs Wednesday night, the informant drove the getaway car directly into the path of police and FBI agents blocking the way with an 18-wheel truck.
The suspects were arrested without incident.
In Newburgh, neighbors and relatives were baffled. None of the men was described as rabidly religious. Rather, they sounded like many living here -- men with prison records, blue-collar jobs and splintered families.
Several neighbors at Cromitie's lakeside apartment complex gathered outside in the midday heat today, drinking beer and expressing disbelief that the man they described as a "cool dude" could be linked to a terrorism plot.
Said one: "This is a big surprise, and that's not the beer talking."
tina.susman@latimes.com
