Free Republic

U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon on Friday granted James Cromitie, 58, compassionate release from prison, six months after the three other members of the "Newburgh Four" were freed. The group was arrested in 2009 on charges of conspiracy to bomb Jewish buildings in New York and shoot down National Guard planes. The group was convicted in 2011 and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. Last July, Judge McMahon ordered the other three conspirators released on the grounds that they had been manipulated into the plot by the FBI...

U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik is keeping up her criticism of the FBI for refusing to answer questions about its connections to Shahed Hussain, the owner of the stretch limo involved in the 2018 crash in Schoharie that killed 20 people. In an appearance earlier this month on Fox News, the Schuylerville Republican said she had yet to get answers from the FBI on Hussain, who worked for years as an undercover informant for the bureau on anti-terrorism cases before his illegal limo operation was involved in the tragedy. During a March appearance before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,...

In 2001, a 45-year-old gas-station owner from Pakistan named Shahed Hussain walked into the Department of Motor Vehicles in Albany and obtained a driver’s license using fake documents for a would-be taxi driver who paid him $1,000. Mr. Hussain was caught, faced federal charges and, to avoid deportation, began a secret career that led him to pose as a recruiter of terrorists. He continued to run a series of businesses with his family, despite bankruptcy and legal issues — including, eventually, a limousine service that repeatedly ran afoul of state inspectors. Now, Mr. Hussain’s improbable journey — from asylum-seeking immigrant...

Owner of limousine company involved in DEADLY NY crash is UNDERCOVER FBI informant & International Fugitive Wanted for Murder The owner of the limousine company behind Saturday’s horror crash which killed 20 people is a former FBI informant who went undercover to record alleged terrorists in mosques after fleeing to the US from Pakistan in the 1990s where he’d been accused of murder. Shahed Hussain, 62, is named as the owner of Prestige Limousines, aka Hasy Limos, aka Saratoga Luxury Limousine, in Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration documents. But 2010 court documents from the terrorism trials of four men who...

NEW YORK — For nearly a year, Shahed Hussain would slip into his role as a wealthy Pakistani businessman and head for Newburgh. He was “Maqsood” when he arrived at local mosque Masjid Al-Ikhlas driving a BMW, or maybe Hummer depending on the day. He was there to listen for Islamic extremism and report back to the FBI, he said. Hussain testified on Friday in the federal trial of four Newburgh men accused of trying to shoot down planes at Stewart Air National Guard Base and blow up a synagogue and Jewish center in the Bronx. The men — James...