NY man convicted of use of WMD in plot to kill Muslims
An upstate New York man has been convicted of plotting to build a remote-controlled radiation device to kill Muslims.
Glendon Scott Crawford, 51, was convicted Friday in federal court in Albany of use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to build and use a radiological dispersal device, Reuters reports. He also was convicted of distributing information with respect to a weapon of mass destruction.
Crawford is a Ku Klux Klan member from Galway, New York. He worked as a mechanic for General Electric, and described his planned device as “Hiroshima on a light switch” in a conversation with an informant, prosecutors said.
Richard Hartunian, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York, credited the public with tipping off law enforcement officials as to Crawford’s plans.
“Glendon Scott Crawford was a terrorist who attempted to acquire a weapon of mass destruction and to use it to kill innocent members of the Muslim community,” he said.
Crawford’s plans stretched back more than a decade and were “very real, very viable and very deadly,” said assistant US attorney Rick Belliss. Crawford also intended to use the device to attack the White House and “a certain liberal politician,” Belliss said.
Defense lawyer Kevin Luibrand contended that Crawford had been entrapped by FBI agents.
“The government is not allowed to encourage someone to commit a crime,” he told jurors in his closing argument.
Crawford, who will be sentenced on Dec. 15, faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years to life in prison and a $2 million fine for the radiological dispersal device charge. The other charges carry sentences of 20 years to life.
