Desperate for money and wooed by a man offering cash and favors, the men accused of trying to blow up two temples and other terrorist activities had little choice but to go along with the plot, the family of three of the four men said last night at a forum sponsored by supporters. "They got themselves into something they didn't know how to get out of," said Alicia McWilliams of the Bronx, the aunt of David Williams, one of the four accused in the temple bombing plot dubbed the Newburgh Four.Williams, 28; James Cromitie, 44; Onta Williams, 32; and Laguerre Payen, 27, have pleaded not guilty to an eight-count indictment accusing them of plotting to blow up two Bronx synagogues and shoot down military aircraft at the Air National Guard Base at Stewart International Airport in New Windsor.
Last night, David Williams' mother and aunt, Cromitie's fiancee and Onta Williams' girlfriend appeared at the headquarters of WESPAC Foundation, a social justice organization, to talk about how their lives have been affected. Family members and friends of the accused men have labeled the case entrapment in the wake of their arrests on May 20 in the Bronx by FBI agents and New York City police. The four were described as reluctant participants in the plot who had no interest in bombing temples or harming people but because they were desperate for money went along with a man who was relentless in his recruitment of them, family members said. The man had been coming to the Newburgh mosque - where two of the accused occasionally attended Friday prayers - offering $25,000 to worshippers to join in some undertaking and talking about jihad, Salahuddin Mustafa Muhammad, head imam at the mosque has said. The man turned out to to have been an FBI informant.
McWilliams, who was the only family member willing to be quoted by name at the forum, said she believes her nephew wouldn't have gone through with the plot and "probably thought they were going to get one on" the informant. "We are not like that," McWilliams said. "We're not raised that way." McWilliams and other family members said what the men were accused of trying to do was wrong, but that they would not have gotten involved had they not been desperate for money and had the FBI and informant not pursued them. "Money is at the root of all evil," McWilliams said. Herbert Hadad, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office, declined yesterday to comment.
During a June 5 hearing in U.S. District Court, David Williams III, the father of accused plotter David Williams, said the FBI and the informant had lured his son into the plot with the promise of money. A family friend, Essence Ross, said after an earlier court hearing that the FBI's informant promised Williams $25,000 to pay for his brother's liver transplant.
The four men were arrested after they planted what they thought were C-4-based explosives outside the synagogues in the Riverdale section of the Bronx on the night of May 20, federal authorities said. Their plan was to drive back to Orange County and shoot down the planes with a Stinger shoulder-held missile system, authorities said. The FBI had supplied the explosives and rocket launcher to an informant to give to the men. The devices were duds, federal authorities said.
WESPAC, which had members sit in support of the men at their June 5 hearing, sought donations last night for the men's family members. Nada Khader, the group's director, pledged to rally support for the men, accusing the FBI of targeting the men. "This is what makes this most vile - they are targeting the most vulnerable," she said. "They're going after people who are victims of capitalism, victims of white supremacy."