A Galway man has been indicted on federal charges of plotting to use a weapon of mass destruction.
Glendon Scott Crawford, 49, was arrested in June along with Eric J. Feight, 54, of Hudson after an FBI task force said the men conspired to sell a homemade radiation weapon to Jewish groups or a southern branch of the Ku Klux Klan.
A federal grand jury in Albany handed up a three-count felony indictment Thursday charging Crawford with attempting to produce and use a radiological device, conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and distribution of information relating to weapons of mass destruction.
Both men have been in jail since their arrests.
Feight, whose alleged role was to design and build an electronic triggering device so the weapon could be activated from a distance, has not been indicted but remains charged under a federal complaint. He is negotiating a plea agreement with the Justice Department, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Crawford, who worked as a General Electric Co. industrial mechanic, and Feight, a computer software expert, are accused of designing and trying to operate a vehicle-mounted radiation device that was intended to be remotely controlled and capable of aiming a high-energy lethal beam of radioactivity at humans. The concept was that victims would mysteriously die from radiation poisoning within days.
Crawford and Feight are acquaintances who over the course of a year devised a plan to sell the weapon to a terrorist organization, according to the FBI. Crawford's role was to design and build the radiation device and its power supply, according to a federal complaint.
The men, both married, were initially charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists for use of a weapon of mass destruction and face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
They never actually obtained a radiation source and the device was not fully constructed, officials said.
The complaint says the FBI's investigation began in April 2012. At that time, Crawford went to a Schenectady synagogue, Congregation Gates of Heaven, and "asked to speak with a person who might be willing to help him with a type of technology that could be used by Israel to defeat its enemies, specifically, by killing Israel's enemies while they slept."
Later that day, Crawford telephoned an Albany Jewish organization, using his cellphone, and made a similar offer, the complaint states. An FBI agent's affidavit indicates that an official with the synagogue contacted police, who relayed the information to the FBI. The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force in Albany launched an investigation.
It took the FBI less than a month to get informants and an undercover agent close to Crawford. Beginning in May 2012, the FBI began recording conversations between Crawford and the undercover sources. In December 2012, after Feight had been enlisted in the plot by Crawford, the FBI obtained a search warrant that enabled agents to monitor Crawford's and Feight's cellphone calls, emails and text messages, according to the complaint.Read Full Article
Crawford was listed on several websites as a member of Americans Demanding Liberty and Freedom, a Galway-based tea party group.
An FBI affidavit indicates as many as eight unidentified people may have been assisting Crawford, including a fellow GE employee described as "Person C." The complaint implies that some of those individuals may have known at least elements of what Crawford was trying to do, but no one else has been charged in the case.
The suspects had successfully tested the remote triggering system that could work from a little less than a half-mile away from the weapon, the complaint states. Last June, they planned to have a dinner where Crawford would be provided with the radiation system, which was not finished. When the men were meeting, the FBI was monitoring their activities, including using undercover informants who posed as members of a South Carolina Ku Klux Klan group interested in purchasing the device and financing the project.
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