Before he became a government informer, Shahed Hussain seemed to have achieved a measure of the American dream. After fleeing Pakistan in 1994 for political reasons, he worked 16-hour days as a gas station attendant until he could buy his own gas stations, expensive cars and a house for his family, according to court testimony. But in U.S. District Court on Wednesday, at the trial of four men accused of involvement in a terrorist plot in which Hussain is the key witness, a defense lawyer tried to illustrate how every step of his journey in the United States had been marked by shortcuts, deceit or excess. The lawyer, Susanne Brody, said Hussain had lied to immigration authorities when he applied for asylum, made false statements on job applications, bounced checks and hid assets when he filed for bankruptcy. Hussain became an informer as part of a plea agreement, after he was arrested in 2002 for taking money to help people illegally obtain driver's licenses. Brody painted that as more than just a serious crime. 'These people were not wealthy; they didn't speak English,' Brody said. 'You took advantage of these people, didn't you?' 'Yes, ma'am,' he replied. Hussain played a central role in what prosecutors say was a plot by four Newburgh men to bomb synagogues in the Bronx and fire missiles at military planes. Posing as a wealthy Pakistani terrorist, Hussain combed mosques in the suburbs north of Manhattan for possible extremists before enlisting the four men in the plot. Defense lawyers say Hussain was an agent provocateur who helped the government entrap their clients. In the coming days, Brody and her colleagues will try to discredit Hussain, the trial's most important witness, by drawing attention to his past and to his conduct in the months before the arrest of the four men in May 2009. The trial, which is in its fourth week, resumed on Wednesday morning after a two-day delay caused by questions about the health of a defendant, Laguerre Payen. Payen, who was unresponsive for days after he was disciplined in prison, was more alert on Wednesday. He slept at the defense table as a prosecutor questioned Hussain, but when Brody started her cross-examination, Payen sat upright and opened his eyes. Payen, Onta Williams, James Cromitie and David Williams IV face charges including conspiracy and attempting to use weapons of mass destruction. In court on Wednesday, Brody, the lawyer for Onta Williams, leafed through Hussain's long paper trail of court documents, applications and other evidence from his 15 years in the United States. He owned gas stations, worked as a translator and bought a motel. He bought a house and when it burned down, he built a new one. He bought many cars, including an Audi and a BMW -- and worked as a used-car dealer for a time. As a government informer, he was involved in dozens of sting operations, some of them involving human traffickers and drug smugglers. Brody used the documents to challenge him and he admitted to making mistakes, on dates or other more serious details. In truth, there was plenty of confusion to go around: Brody also erred on several dates. Hussain blamed one of the many lawyers he had used over the years for some of the confusion. Other things, like the period when he fled Pakistan, he said, he had deliberately tried to forget. 