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Feds: "It's Hard To Envision A More Chilling Plot" Than One Involving Stoner And Schizophrenic
OK, this really puts the nail in the coffin of any claims that those four guys arrested last night in connection with a plot to bomb two New York synagogues were some kind of highly dangerous terror cell.
Calling the men "amateurs every step of the way," the AP reports:
Relatives said the defendants were down-on-their-luck men who worked at places like Wal-Mart, a landscaping company and a warehouse when they weren't behind bars. Payen's lawyer said he was "intellectually challenged" and on medication for schizophrenia. Marilyn Reader said he has "a very low borderline" IQ....
Payen, 27, did time for attempted assault -- in 2002, he and others fired a BB gun out an SUV window, hitting two people in the head. He snatched purses from two women later the same day, said state Division of Parole spokeswoman Heather Groll.
So: An intellectually-challenged schizophrenic BB-gun-shooting purse-snatcher, and a stoner ringleader.
"It's hard to envision a more chilling plot," said assistant U.S. attorney Eric Snyder.
It is? We'd sure hate to see what Snyder would say about al Qeada.
Josh
Zachary
And one of them was allowed bail. So I guess he wasn't that dangerous.
May 21, 2009 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
My bad, I misunderstood a headline. They're all being held.
May 21, 2009 7:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
No big deal.
The CBC (Canadian Broadcasting) is reporting that the bomb(?) they possessed was manufactured by — who could imagine? — an "undercover" FBI agent.
So the boys were getting high and, well, they forgot to request uniforms ala the Sears Tower bombers — convicted on the third try — and, Whammo!, the boys are nabbed.
More proof: If you ain't white, don't be messin' with our terror stuff. We got lock, Holmes.
May 22, 2009 5:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
I guess maybe we should wait to hear all the facts. What a concept!
May 21, 2009 7:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a New Yorker... I hate to say it, but this smells of entrapment.
I'd like to know how much in the course of year the 'informant' encouraged these guys on... and then provided the 'fake' material.
Apparently there was one 'MASTERMIND' and the 'informant' who enlisted three others.
If they were left to their own devices would this have been anything more than a fleeting delusional fantasy?
May 21, 2009 7:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
What more likely a group of suckers to entrap than this neighborhood Dumb and Dumber club? Surely the agents who set this up and provided the fake bomb, weren't much brighter. Their desperation for anything that justified their fear mongering is starting to show, it seems quite likely they were reduced to this ludicrous kabuki by the sheer absence of REAL terror plots.
Sounds like the Bush era's own version of the Keystone Cops. Where are the real terrorists, and why don't we ever bust up a serious group, if they are so proliferate as to require our entire military/industrial complex to defend against?
Remember what Ashcroft was investing our "joint" efforts in as Bin Laden was planning his attack? He spent MILLIONS spying on and busting glass blowing shops because they supplied all those California hippies with pipes to smoke pot in.
It's all part of a big class lie, promulgated to promote future income for the war profiteers. And keeping us all cocked-for-war and fearful of our own neighbors, helps assure those profiteers their future wars-for-profit.
May 22, 2009 8:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
sure, scoff. these were hardened terrorists, each one almost as dangerous as Ayman Ferris, whose team (not yet assembled) of blowtorch-wielding jihadis were mere years (some say seconds!) from taking down the brooklyn bridge with their blowtorches of doom! in fact, the ringleader is more of a threat than the guy who could defy the laws of physics by blowing up a pipeline at JFK, which, were it not for those laws of physics, could have killed thousands of people!
May 22, 2009 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
This dude worked at Wal-Mart...
What the FBI offered him was a $38,000 dollar missile?
for how much? 20 bucks?
Seriously.... this case smells
May 21, 2009 7:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Correction:
It's not Wal-Mart... It's Walmart*
As someone who has worked on Madison Avenue... This is a really important difference that has got to be corrected.
If we're going to preserve our American values... then we need proper product placement in all of news stories.
Get it together Mr. Josh Fucking Marshall
May 21, 2009 8:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's WAL*MART.
You're not much of a shopper are you?
May 22, 2009 5:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
I thought it was Mal Wart?
May 22, 2009 9:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
I would suspect the one that they didn't show a picture of was their informant. Yeah these guys are hard core terrorist alright.Give me a f'ing break! Its another set up to make the FB1 look good and that they are protecting us.These guys were enabled and led by the informant at the FBI's direction,otherwise they wouldn't have got as for as they did.
May 21, 2009 8:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Like the four Muslims they busted casing Disneyland?
God forbid... people travel from Illinois to LA and go to Disneyland with a video camera.
But that is apparently one of the few cases Cheney is still clinging to as an example of plots that his policies thwarted.
May 21, 2009 8:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Josh you still think this isn't a variation on Liberty City? The only difference I see is that the suspects were given fake weaponry they otherwise would never had gotten access to and allowed to try to use it.
Lets see if the Secret Service starts having undercover agents supply people talking about assassinating Obama with faulty sniper rifles. Should be a ton of prosecutions there.
This makes the "topless woman in the park asking men to show her their genitals" entrapment deal seem better for some reason.
May 21, 2009 8:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
The FBI is growing bolder. In Liberty City they only gave the guys things like boots and cameras. Now they are handing out play bombs to the sad cases on the margins of society.
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/eds/2009/05/manufactured-crime-on-the-marg.php
I'm not saying that copycat crimes are not a problem. They definitely can be. And such stories might instill some sense of caution in any rational person considering working for/with an unknown "operative". Dunno if paranoia is what we need. Maybe hospitalization or better care for schizophrenics would be a good step in a different direction.
May 22, 2009 12:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Paranoia, no. But hell, I'm not sure how you separate one sad sack from another.
May 22, 2009 1:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
I might have missed it but did they do this type of stuff after Oklahoma City?
May 22, 2009 4:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm saying eds is right. The better option would be treatment.
But until the happy day when there are no more schizophrenics, delunsionals and misanthropes wandering the streets, somebody's going to have to deal with deciding which ones are credible and which ones aren't. Because not all of them aren't. It's too easy to say this was just bored federal agents rousting losers for sport.
May 22, 2009 7:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't think you disagreed. I just was wondering if you knew since you brought up Timmy.
May 22, 2009 10:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
As far as I know, the fun started after 9/11.
May 22, 2009 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah I'm not saying these guys are innocent but at what point does recruiting and convincing wouldbe terrorists become entrapment? A friggin schizo and a weed-head from Walmart? How many homeless men could they convert to the darkside with the offer of booze, a place to sleep or a hot meal?
May 22, 2009 4:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
McVeigh was offed before he could talk, you know. And his brother-in-law is mum. For good reason.
May 22, 2009 5:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Given that the "informant" is reported to have offered to pay people to join his "team", I think the case is terribly flawed. But I'm sure the FBI has piles of video and audio data over the past year. That might help clarify if these guys were more hapless pawns or rather unstoppable knights of terror who happened to find a willing accomplice in the "informant" (who has played that role before, btw) for an FBI agent who just happens to have a clouded track record of his own.
I'm getting the picture of the agent as an incompetent slacker, someone who should have been weeded out years ago. Could be wrong, just how it's shaping up in my imagination...
May 22, 2009 5:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm most interested in the "informant."
Is he an actual patriot who thought these guys were a threat? A shrewd manipulator who thought he could make himself some money by playing the FBI & the ex-cons one against the other?
Perhaps someone who needed help getting relatives into the U. S., or had other federal issues (taxes?) & hoped he could help himself w/ the gummint?
Worst-case scenario: The informant is a real, organized, connected terrorist or sleeper or whatnot, & has now managed to ingratiate himself w/ the FBI by setting these four poor bastards up.
May 21, 2009 10:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
The "informant" was the same one who was involved in a highly controversial sting against two Muslim men in Albany a few years ago. I smell entrapment.
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=802661
May 21, 2009 10:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting.
"Hussain, convicted of federal fraud-related charges in 2002, became an FBI informant, according to court records. However, his criminal file has since vanished from public records in U.S. District Court.
In 2004, the FBI recruited him to infiltrate the inner circle of Masjid As-Salam,"
May 22, 2009 12:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Should be "chillin'," maybe. Nice quote.
May 22, 2009 12:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
You what a chill? There is a crack head that has been selling boom booms to over the border trafficers that is looking for a new market.
We can hope that president twinkel toes has misses potato head lisening to the chatter that will keep us from the next 9-11.
May 22, 2009 1:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
see, kids? drugs have a downside.
May 22, 2009 12:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey lets water board them now that we have convicted them they must be guilty right they are the correct color and religion. Lets lock them up no trial need for at least 7 plus years.
a paid informant said they did it.(a bounty was paid we don't even need to give them a trial,we are all patriots now you know, good Americans don't question authority, just keep us safe lock up any one that doesn't look or sound like us.)
My Gods better than your god ha ha....
Good enough for me
Like my dad said if they were smart enough to be a rocket scientist, they would be making rockets.
Not doing the cops and robbers thing.
Just came to mind who was he talking about the crooks or the law enforcement....?
Schizophrenic hearing voices now that is scary! Careful we may have a prophet....
OH **** what if he is right?
What the hell happened to truth and justice for all?
Corporate congress?
May 22, 2009 1:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
I love people like Love America OWBY.
May 22, 2009 5:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just kidding.
May 22, 2009 5:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
The FBI has a long history of this sort of thing ... the 1960's were rife with it.
May 22, 2009 9:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I really, really hope that the idea of bombing a synagogue was not planted by the informant, looking to make the case really sexy. But it's hard not to be utterly cynical these days.
May 22, 2009 9:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
I said this yesterday, but is it not beyond thinking that they entrapped these guys to make Cheney seem like he was talking a lick of sense (I use that phrase very loosely) before a major policy (oh please don't imprison me I swear our tactics were and are still necessary) speech? All of these arrests seem to come at opportune times, and generally involve low hanging fruit who had no real ability to commit the crimes they were ensnared in.
May 22, 2009 9:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
I for one feel safer knowing the FBI, the CIA, and the Military have done such a good job stopping non existent threats since the real one took 3,000 lives.
May 22, 2009 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your government at work!
Real intelligence on real threats is too easy. It takes real effort to get a Pakistani driving instructor to convince drug addicts and mental patients that they should buy bombs from him and blow up a synagogue or two.
May 22, 2009 3:44 PM | Reply | Permalink