Prosecutors: Videos detail NY terror plot

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — Video shot from an airplane and a helicopter helped authorities track nearly every move made by four men accused of plotting attacks on New York City synagogues and upstate New York military targets, a prosecutor said Friday.

The two aircraft were key components of a surveillance team that followed the men on the day the defendants planted what they believed were explosives, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Snyder said at a federal court hearing. The bombs planted in the Bronx last month were actually fake, part of a sting operation involving nearly 100 officers.

“There’s video of everything in this case your honor,” Snyder told the judge.

The government had already given defense lawyers copies of 45 DVDs showing the defendants meeting, sometimes for as much as two hours, as they plotted the attacks since last June, Snyder said.

The prosecutor’s description of the evidence was “almost more than I want to hear,” U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon said. “Don’t argue the case.”

The videotapes include footage from a camera planted inside the vehicle used to transport the fake bomb on the day of the planned attack, Snyder said. He said the government also has surveillance video shot at an altitude of 5,000 feet by a plane and similar video shot by a helicopter that was tracking them on the day they were planting their fake bomb.

The handcuffed suspects, James Cromitie, Laguerre Payen, David Williams and Onta Williams, sat in the jury box and did not speak Friday. Their next court date was set for Sept. 17. They are held without bail on charges that they engaged in a conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and conspiracy to acquire and use anti-aircraft missiles to kill U.S. officers and employees.

Susanne Brody, an attorney representing Onta Williams, accused prosecutors of trying to incite “public outrage” against her client by revealing so much about their case.

“It’s an explosive case. It’s frightening what’s here,” she said outside court.

Payen’s lawyer, Marilyn Reader, said she wants to have her client evaluated to see if he’s fit to stand trial.

“He clearly has psychological issues,” she said.

Relatives have said the defendants had worked at places such as Wal-Mart, a landscaping company and a warehouse before their May 20 arrests.

Prosecutors say the men acted out of hatred for Jews and America.

The men were accused of plotting to destroy two synagogues in the heavily Jewish Riverdale section of the Bronx and to shoot down planes at the Air National Guard base in Newburgh, about 50 miles north of New York City. The government said the lethal explosives and a surface-to-air missile system that the men thought they had obtained actually were inert devices supplied by the FBI in a sting operation.