New York Daily News

Aided plot, tried to stab G-man

- BY ANDREW KESHNER With Kerry Burke

A KNIFE-WIELDING ISIS wannabe is getting a 17-year prison term for his terrorist aspiration­s and attack on an FBI agent.

Fareed Mumuni and his associates were plotting a pressure-cooker bomb attack in the New York area and trying to get ISIS sympathize­rs to Syria, according to Brooklyn federal prosecutor­s.

When the feds arrived at his Staten Island home in June 2015 with a search warrant, Mumuni, 23, lunged with a kitchen knife at one unsuspecti­ng FBI agent.

The blade didn’t pierce the body armor that agent Kevin Coughlin had opted to put on at the last minute.

At Mumuni’s Thursday sentencing, Coughlin told the would-be terrorist, “I never met you. I never wronged you. I never did anything to you, yet you tried to kill me.”

The agent later added, “You attacked the foundation of law and order that makes our country great.”

Mumuni was looking at possibly spending the rest of his life in prison; prosecutor­s had pressed for an 80-year term.

But Brooklyn Federal Judge Margo Brodie noted Mumuni wasn’t the ringleader and he didn’t recruit others.

Mumuni didn’t have a hand in any bomb attack plans, his lawyer insisted. Mumuni was corrupted by ISIS, but “capable of redemption,” said attorney Anthony Ricco. Brodie sentenced one of Mumuni’s partners in crime, Munther Omar Saleh, 22, to an 18-year term in February.

That month, Saleh and Mumuni (photo) pleaded guilty to charges, including plotting material support for ISIS. Mumuni also admitted to the assault and attempted murder of a federal officer.

Meanwhile, two other accused ISIS aspirants — both of them women — could also be throwing in the towel on their cases, the Daily News has learned.

About two months before the dramatic arrests of Mumuni and Saleh, authoritie­s nabbed two Queens women, Noelle Velentzas, 30, and Asia Siddiqui, 34. The onetime roommates were plotting a bomb attack, Brooklyn federal prosecutor­s said.

The pair are in plea negotiatio­ns, prosecutor­s said in court papers this week.

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