Crawford was convicted of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction in August and was sentenced to 30

He also described Muslims as America's 'medical waste' in secret recordings

when in 2012 he approached staff at a Schenectady synagogue with a plan to 'help Jews get rid of their enemies'

A New York mechanic who was building a mobile X-ray gun designed to blast Muslims with a lethal dose of radiation, has been jailed for 30 years.

Glendon Scott Crawford, 52, of Galway, planned to kill Muslims, and several other groups of people whose political and social beliefs he disagreed with, U.S. Attorney Richard Hartunian said.

'This is a classic case of domestic terrorism,' Hartunian said after Crawford's sentencing by U.S. District Judge Gary L. Sharpe.

Glendon Scott Crawford, seen here in 2013, has been sentenced to 30 years in jail for plotting to kill Muslims with a homemade death ray

Crawford planned to turn an industrial-grade X-ray machine into a remote-controlled death-ray gun, the court heard.

The gun would then be mounted inside a truck and driven to an area with a high population of Muslims.

The driver would park the truck and leave the scene, activating the ray gun via a remote control from about half a mile away.

Everyone near the truck would receive a lethal dose of radiation and die within two weeks of the attack.

The FBI say the device would have worked if they had not stopped him.

X-ray gun: Crawford's alleged plot involved remotely firing a death ray that would kill victims with radiation poisoning weeks later, a plot officials say may have worked

Investigators began tracking Crawford in 2012 after he approached two local Jewish groups with a proposal for destroying Israel's enemies.

Prosecutors said Crawford also sought support for the device in 2013 from a Ku Klux Klan grand wizard in North Carolina who was an FBI informant.

Co-defendant Eric Feight, of Hudson, pleaded guilty in 2014 to providing material support to terrorists. He admitted building a remote control for the X-ray device. Feight, a control systems engineer, was sentenced to eight years in prison a year ago.

Crawford, an industrial mechanic who worked with Feight at General Electric in Schenectady, was convicted of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction and distributing information about weapons of mass destruction in August.

A jury that rejected his lawyer's argument that he was entrapped by the FBI.

Crawford, pictured in 2013, told the court he had 'feared for my nation's and my children's nation's future,' when trying to account for himself in court

Given an opportunity in court Monday to argue for a more lenient sentence, Crawford delivered a complicated statement about physics, his interpretation of legal statutes and criticism of his defense lawyer.

He insisted he never intended personally to use the device he was making, but only to provide 'technical assistance' for others to use it.

DEATH-RAY TERROR PLOT Crawford planned to turn an industrial-grade X-ray machine into a remote-controlled laser gun. The laser gun would be mounted in a truck and driven to an area near the intended victims. After parking the truck, the driver would leave the scene and activate the laser via a remote control from about half a mile away. Everyone near the truck would receive a lethal dose of radiation and die within two weeks of the attack. The FBI says the device would have worked if it had been completed. Advertisement

'I feared for my nation's and my children's nation's future,' Crawford said, launching into a criticism of U.S. immigration policy regarding Muslims before the judge cut him off.

'This conduct is bizarre,' Sharpe said. 'You are bizarre.'

FBI agents admit that when they first began investigating Crawford, they weren't even sure if he was serious - or even capable of it.

The agency were first alerted to Crawford's plot after he went into an Albany 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 says.

During that conversation he referred to Muslims and enemies of the United States as 'medical waste,' according to court records.

Kathryn Laws, an administrative assistant at Congregation Gates of Heaven in Schenectady, with whom he spoke to about his offer, testified: 'He had a plan to help Jews get rid of their enemies. I told him we don't really have any direct contact with Israel.'

Plot: Glendon Crawford, who lived at this house in upstate New York, was arrested by the FBI in 2012

Members of the synagogue contacted law enforcement authorities, and the FBI began its undercover operation.

'His plot to murder people he did not know was designed to, in his oft-repeated words, 'take his country back' from government leaders by forcing them to change government conduct he perceived as favoring Muslims,' prosecutors wrote in a pre-sentencing court filing.

Crawford had also contacted European defense leagues with his idea.

Prosecutors presented secret audio and video recordings and wiretapped phone conversations with Crawford discussing supposed technical aspects of such a machine and making political observations.

He described himself as a member of conservative and religious groups, including his church, though his feelings about Islam cost him his position as a deacon.

Co-conspirator: Eric J. Feight pleaded guilty to domestic terrorism-related charges for agreeing to help Crawford build his gun and was jailed for eight years

'We all would like our country restored to what it was,' Crawford said in a recording. 'And the vast majority of Americans would, too.'

The FBI state that on June 5, 2012, Crawford met with their source at a Scotia restaurant and allegedly talked about his plan to construct a powerful industrial x-ray machine that would be powered by batteries.

'Crawford also told the (source) that the target of his radiation emitting device would be the Muslim community,' the complaint states. 'Crawford described the device's capabilities as 'Hiroshima on a light switch' and that 'everything with respiration would be dead by the morning.''

Crawford ended the meeting, telling the source 'how much sweeter could there be than a big stack of smelly bodies?'

At another point in the excerpted tapes, he said, 'So we can get rid of all the medical waste lying around the country.'

West testified that he understood that to mean, 'Killing Muslims.'