An Al Qaeda sympathizer pleaded guilty on Wednesday to plotting to bomb police officers, war veterans, and Jews in a New York City apartment, the New York Daily News reported.
Jose Pimentel, 29, reached a plea agreement with prosecutors five days before his trial was set to begin and will likely receive a 16-year jail sentence on his March 25 hearing.
He was caught by an undercover agent in November 2011 and was charged with a count of attempted weapons possession in the first degree as a crime of terrorism in Manhattan Supreme Court. According to prosecutors, Pimentel was a "lone wolf" who did not support the presence of American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Manhattan continues to be the symbol of much that terrorists hate about the United States, so we remain a principal target for terrorist attacks, both at home and from abroad," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said.
Pimentel, who also went by Muhammad Yousuf, admitted to downloading an article titled "How to Build a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom" in the Al Qaeda magazine Inspire.
As he planned his plot to attack soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, NYPD vehicles, a police station in Bayonne, New Jersey, and postal facilities, he sent the article to the undercover officer pretending to work with him.
"We had engaged in conversations about committing acts of violence to influence the foreign policy of the United States," Pimentel acknowledged in his plea deal.
According to NYDN, his lawyers argued he was the victim of police entrapment since officers worked with him on his plot. They also argued he was not a serious threat since he published his jihad-inspired ideas on the internet.
"The fundamental question that will not be answered, at least in the court of law, is who exactly is recruiting whom in this war on terror," defense attorney Mary Walsh told the New York Times outside of court.
