NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — A Queens woman has been sentenced to more than 16 years in prison for trying to make a bomb she planned to use to help ISIS and al-Qaeda target U.S. law enforcement personnel, prosecutors say.
Noelle Velentzas, 33, received the 16.5-year sentence in federal court on Wednesday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York said in a press release.
“The defendant expressed her support for foreign terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham by learning how to build bombs and other explosive devices and targeting members of law enforcement for terror,” Acting U.S. Attorney Mark Lesko said in a statement.
“Today’s sentence imposes a just punishment on the defendant for her planned horrific crimes,” he added.
Prosecutors said Velentzas and an accomplice, Asia Siddiqui, started teaching each other chemistry and other skills needed to build explosive devices between 2013 and 2015.
The pair “studied” attacks including the Boston Marathon bombing, the 1993 World Trade Center attack and the Oklahoma City bombing, purchased materials needed to make explosive devices and researched possible law enforcement and military targets in the U.S., prosecutors said.
Velentzas not only “claimed that Osama bin Laden was her hero,” but also “expressed praise for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks,” according to prosecutors.
When she and her accomplice were arrested in 2015, law enforcement officers found propane tanks, car bomb instructions, machetes and “jihadist literature” inside their homes, prosecutors said.
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