New York man jailed for 30 years over X-ray weapon designed to harm Muslims

The 52-year-old will be under supervision for the rest of his life

Glendon Crawford will be supervised for the rest of his life (AP)

A New York man convicted of creating an X-ray device intended to harm Muslims, is to be jailed for 30 years in jail.

Judge Gary Sharpe, who presides over cases in the Northern District of New York, ordered Glendon Crawford to the lengthy prison term and said he should undergo supervision upon release for the rest of his life.

Crawford, a Navy veteran and a member of the Ku Klux Klan, intended to kill victims with radiation sickness from the remote-control device, which be believed would shoot a lethal beam of radioactivity into its human target.

FBI surveillance video showing FBI agents raiding a garage where Glendon Crawford worked (AP)

The 52-year-old was found guilty of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction and “distributing information about weapons of mass destruction,” according to the Associated Press.

Crawford and co-defendant Eric Feight, who was sentenced by a federal court to eight years in prison last year, worked at General Motors in Schenectady, in upstate New York.

GE said it had suspended Crawford. The company said in a statement: “On Tuesday afternoon the FBI informed GE that Glendon Scott Crawford, a GE manufacturing employee, was arrested for a criminal act.

“We have no reason to believe the act took place on GE property nor is there any information indicating that our employees’ safety was ever compromised. Since this incident, Mr Crawford has been suspended. We are cooperating fully with the authorities on their investigation.”

Crawford will be behind bars for 30 years (AP)

The FBI caught on to Crawford in 2012, when he visited a synagogue 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”, the complaint, obtained by NBC, said

Someone at the synagogue contacted the police.

The FBI was able to track Crawford’s messages, get surveillance footage and eventually spoke with a source who met with him and relayed his plans and anti-Muslim beliefs.

“Crawford also told the (source) that the target of his radiation emitting device would be the Muslim community,” the charge said.

According to reports, the FBI met Crawford undercover at a Schaghticoke, warehouse on June 18, 2013. They apprehended the device and arrested him at the scene.

The New York Times reported that hate crimes have increased by six per cent, fueled by attacks against Muslims.