“The decision, by Judge Colleen McMahon of United States District Court in Manhattan, was scathing in its description of the methods used by the F.B.I. in its pursuit of the three”

Jesse McKinley

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the “compassionate release” of three Hudson Valley men who were part of a group known as the “Newburgh Four” after finding that F.B.I. agents had used an “unscrupulous operative” to persuade them to join a plot to blow up synagogues and bring down military planes more than a decade ago.

The decision, by Judge Colleen McMahon of United States District Court in Manhattan, was scathing in its description of the methods used by the F.B.I. in its pursuit of the three — Onta Williams, Laguerre Payen and David Williams — calling the plot in which they were convicted ofparticipating in 2010 “an F.B.I.-orchestrated conspiracy.”