NY terror suspects have histories of substance abuse, mental illness

From the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y.:

NEWBURGH, N.Y. -- The four accused terror plotters’ lives are rife with so many shortcomings - drug-and-alcohol addictions, abbreviated formal educations and mental illness - it’s a wonder they could organize a meeting among themselves.

When defendant Laguerre Payen (pictured) appeared in court Thursday, he seemed confused by the proceedings and repeatedly asked his lawyer what was happening.

“Mr. Payen suffers from, let me put it this way, he’s intellectually challenged,” his lawyer, Marilyn Reader, told the court.

Payen, who is from Haiti, replied “sort of” when he was asked if he understood his rights.

Payen, who is bipolar, takes medication for schizophrenia and depression. He also was recently treated for drug and alcohol addiction.

Payen, 27, was paroled in 2005 after serving a year of a 2-to-4-year sentence for attempted assault in Rockland County. He pleaded guilty to shooting two 16-year-olds in the head and eye with a BB gun in Monsey, according to records.

“I was messed up on the street. I didn’t know what I was doing,” Payen told commissioners at his parole hearing in 2005.

Payen, who also had prior arrests for burglary and petty larceny, had been enrolled in “aggression replacement training” while in prison.

“I completed most of it,” he said four years before being charged with plotting to blow up synagogues and military airplanes. “I have to finish like 2 percent of it. I’m done pretty much.”

He had planned to work in food services in hospitals.

“I like helping people with food,” he said. “I like working in hospitals.”
The other terror suspects similarly have troubled pasts.

David Williams was in prison for drug and weapons possession charges was released on parole in April 2005. He violated parole four months later and remained under parole’s supervision until a year ago.

And James Cromitie, aka David Anderson, 44, has been in and out of state prison three times over the past 20 years for drug-related charges in New York City. He was most recently released in 2004 after serving a 4-to-9-year sentence for selling drugs near a school in the Bronx.

The last terror suspect, Onta Williams, faced sentencing for drug charges in 2003. Williams told Orange County Court Judge Jeffrey Berry at the time that “I just went down the wrong road.”

“I’m paying for it now and my lawyer said that when this is all said and done, I could come home a better person and stay out of trouble,” Williams said at the time.

Williams was sentenced to 1 to 6 years in prison but was paroled after serving three months, records show.

That state prison sentence was to run concurrently with a 70-month federal sentence for weapons charges.

At his state setencing, Williams’ lawyer, Sol Lesser, described a troubled past that included an addiction to drugs.

“Onta is 26 years old, he’s got three children at home, young kids, obviously, but to me, the highlight of the pre-sentence report is the fact that, since the age of 15 or 16, Onta has been hooked on cocaine and crack,” Lesser told Berry.

When he was 14, Onta Williams was charged in what police suspected was a racially motivated gang assault in Newburgh’s Delano-Hitch Park.

The victim, 15, was ganged up on by a group of 12-to-15-year-olds.