Cops: 2 Men Made Ray Gun to Zap Enemies of Israel

Sci-fi meets the crime blotter: US authorities accused two men of assembling a portable X-ray weapon that they intended to use to secretly sicken opponents of Israel. The indictment charged 49-year-old Glendon Scott Crawford of Galway, NY, and 54-year-old Eric J. Feight of Hudson, NY, with conspiracy to provide support to terrorists with the weapon. Investigators said Crawford approached Jewish organizations last year looking for funding and people to help him with technology that could be used to surreptitiously deliver damaging and even lethal doses of radiation against those he considered enemies of Israel. He and Feight assembled the mobile device, which was to be controlled remotely, but it was inoperable and nobody was hurt, authorities said.

"Crawford has specifically identified Muslims and several other individuals/groups as targets," investigator Geoffrey Kent said in a court affidavit. According to the indictment, Crawford also traveled to North Carolina in October to solicit money for the weapon from a ranking member of the Ku Klux Klan, who informed the FBI. Crawford claimed to be a member. Both men are being held pending hearings and face up to 15 years in prison. Crawford, an industrial mechanic for General Electric, knew Feight, an outside GE contractor with mechanical and engineering skills, through work, authorities said. Feight designed, built, and tested the remote control, which they planned to use to operate an industrial X-ray system mounted on a truck. (More Glendon Scott Crawford stories.)