Quoted Text

Wednesday, Jun. 29, 2011
3 in Temple Plot Sentenced to 25 Years
By AP / TOM HAYS

(NEW YORK) — Three men caught in an elaborate FBI sting plotting to blow up New York City synagogues and shoot down military planes were sentenced Wednesday to 25 years in prison.

James Cromitie, David Williams and Onta Williams were found guilty last year of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and other charges. (How the Riverdale Bomb Plot Unraveled)

Judge Colleen McMahon said Wednesday that the government "created acts of terrorism out of (Cromitie's) ... fantasies of bragadicio and bigotry and then made those fantasies come true." She said she can't condemn the defendants enough and blamed their motives on their hatred for Jews. "All the evil in this world is due to bigotry and mindless hatred that is rooted in human beings ridiculous and unjustified suspicion of anyone we can categorize as the other on the grounds of race or ethnicity or religion or nationality," McMahon said.

Their lawyers had argued that they deserved leniency because they were under the spell of a paid FBI informant posing as an Islamic extremist and promising a big payday, and that they never posed an actual threat.

Before sentencing, Cromitie said, "I've never been a terrorist and I never will be a terrorist. ... I'm very sorry for letting myself get caught up in a sting like this one made up by the government."

But prosecutors argued that by law it didn't matter that the men never had access to real weapons and were under close watch the whole time. They called the defendants "ticking time bombs" who agreed to do "horrible things" and needed to be put behind bars for life..................>>>>..................>>>>.................http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2080542,00.html