Jose Pimentel (born November 8, 1984Mother Of Suspected 'Lone Wolf' Terrorist Apologizes To City
/ref>), also known as Muhammad Yusuf, is a naturalized U.S. citizen arrested on November 20, 2011, by the

New York City Police Department The City of New York Police Department, also referred to as New York City Police Department (NYPD), is the primary law enforcement agency within New York City. Established on May 23, 1845, the NYPD is the largest, and one of the oldest, munic ...

for allegedly plotting to bomb

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

Early life

Pimentel is originally from the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...

and moved to the United States when he was five years old. In 2004, he moved to

Schenectady, New York Schenectady ( ) is a City (New York), city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the United States Census 2020, 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-most populo ...

, to attend college and converted to

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

that same year. In December 2005, he was arrested for buying a computer with stolen credit card information he got while working at a

Circuit City Circuit City Corporation, Inc., formerly Circuit City Stores, Inc., is an American consumer electronics retail company, which was founded in 1949 by Samuel Wurtzel as the Wards Company, operated stores across the United States, and pioneered th ...

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It is located on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River. Albany is the oldes ...

Bomb plot

Pimentel's alleged targets included U.S. troops returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Pimentel is reported to have shown theological interest in

Anwar al-Awlaki Anwar Nasser Abdulla al-Awlaki (; April 21 or 22, 1971September 30, 2011) was an American-Yemeni lecturer assassinated Drone strikes in Yemen, in Yemen in 2011 by a U.S. government drone strike ordered by President Barack Obama. Al-Awlaki was th ...

, posting at least fifteen video clips of the extremist cleric to his YouTube account and posting materials from Awlaki and other terrorists on his website, trueislam1.com.Al Qaeda Inspired New York Resident Arrested on Terrorism Charges
Anti-Defamation League, November 21, 2011. After his arrest, information surfaced that the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

had declined to get involved in the case as they thought Pimentel was incapable of successfully executing the attack and was merely mentally unstable. ''

The Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers p ...

'' reported that Pimentel smoked

marijuana Cannabis (), commonly known as marijuana (), weed, pot, and ganja, List of slang names for cannabis, among other names, is a non-chemically uniform psychoactive drug from the ''Cannabis'' plant. Native to Central or South Asia, cannabis has ...

with the

NYPD The City of New York Police Department, also referred to as New York City Police Department (NYPD), is the primary law enforcement agency within New York City. Established on May 23, 1845, the NYPD is the largest, and one of the oldest, munic ...

's cooperating

informant An informant (also called an informer or, as a slang term, a "snitch", "rat", "canary", "stool pigeon", "stoolie", "tout" or "grass", among other terms) is a person who provides privileged information, or (usually damaging) information inten ...

in the case, and was likely

high High may refer to: Science and technology * Height * High (atmospheric), a high-pressure area * High (computability), a quality of a Turing degree, in computability theory * High (tectonics), in geology an area where relative tectonic uplift t ...

when making some of the incriminating statements recorded by police. Police outlets claim that he was planning to change his name to Osama Hussein to celebrate his heroes

Osama bin Laden Osama bin Laden (10 March 19572 May 2011) was a militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, Bin Laden participated in the Afghan ''mujahideen'' against the Soviet Union, and support ...

and

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...

, though these claims have been heavily disputed by members of the Hamilton Heights community.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pimentel, Jose 1984 births Living people Converts to Islam American Islamists Dominican Republic emigrants to the United States Naturalized citizens of the United States

Early life

Bomb plot

See also

References