Judge orders release of 3 of 'Newburgh Four' and assails FBI's role in a post-9/11 terror sting

Source: Associated Press

Judge orders release of 3 of ‘Newburgh Four’ and assails FBI’s role in a post-9/11 terror sting

BY MICHAEL R. SISAK AND JENNIFER PELTZ
Updated 12:53 AM EDT, July 28, 2023

NEW YORK (AP) — Three men convicted in a post-9/11 terrorism sting have been ordered freed from prison by a judge who deemed their lengthy sentences “unduly harsh and unjust” and decried the FBI’s role in radicalizing them in a plot to blow up New York synagogues and shoot down National Guard planes.

Onta Williams, David Williams and Laguerre Payen — three of the men known as the “Newburgh Four” — were “hapless, easily manipulated and penurious petty criminals” caught up more than a decade ago in a scheme driven by overzealous FBI agents and a dodgy informant, U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon said in her ruling Thursday.

“The real lead conspirator was the United States,” McMahon wrote in granting the men’s request for compassionate release, effective in three months.

She said that it was “heinous” of the men to agree to participate in what she called the government’s “made for TV movie.” But, the judge added, “the sentence was the product of a fictitious plot to do things that these men had never remotely contemplated, and that were never going to happen.”

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/newburgh-four-terrorism-sting-fbi-compassionate-release-62065491755cf80766aaab46410cdeff