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NYC Man Who Talked West Point Attack, Wife Plead Guilty to Terror Charge in Manhattan

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A New York City man who discussed potentially attacking West Point cadets and his wife each pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to ISIS in Manhattan federal court, prosecutors announced Monday.

James Bradley, a 21-year-old from the Bronx, and his 30-year-old wife Arwa Muthana, were arrested at a Newark, New Jersey, seaport by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in April 2021 as they tried to board a cargo ship bound for the Middle East, where they wanted to join and fight for ISIS, authorities have said.

He pleaded guilty on Friday, while she entered her plea earlier Monday.

“Husband and wife James Bradley and Arwa Muthana admitted today to their support of ISIS, a violent extremist terrorist organization. In planning their support, Bradley and Muthana collected and distributed jihadist propaganda, including videos of Usama Bin Laden, and even chillingly expressed their desire to ‘take out’ American military cadets,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said Monday. “Just one day after the anniversary of 9/11, today’s prosecution of Bradley and Muthana exemplifies that the resolve of this Office and our law enforcement partners will never waiver, and we will never forget.”

According to prosecutors, Bradley had expressed violent extremist views, including his support for and desire to join ISIS, since at least 2019. In May 2020, he told an undercover law enforcement officer that he thought ISIS may be good for Muslims because of the caliphate it had been trying to establish, the criminal complaint stated. He also explained that he wanted to conduct a terrorist attack in the U.S., specifically discussing a potential attack at West Point.

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Bradley said that if he were unable to leave the country because of a terror watch list he might’ve been on, he would do “something” in the U.S. instead, hinting at carrying out an attack, the criminal complaint said. He told the undercover officer that an attack on a military base would be his contribution to a jihad.

Court documents say that in January 2021 he mentioned another university in New York where he frequently saw ROTC cadets training, saying that he and Muthana could use his truck in an attack to take all of the cadets “out.”

Before and after getting married later that month, Bradley and Muthana talked about their plans of going to the Middle East together to join ISIS, according to the criminal complaint. In early March 2021, Bradley visited Muthana in Alabama, where she lived. The pair then traveled back to New York to finish planning and begin their journey, the complaint read.

After she was arrested, Muthana said during an interview that she would be willing to kill Americans if it was for Allah, according to court documents. On the day the couple was arrested, FBI agents seized what court documents said appeared to be a hand-drawn image of a jihadi flag used by the terror group from Bradley’s bedroom, as well as a hand-drawn map of the Pakistan region.

The single count Muthana and Bradley pleaded guilty to carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Both are expected to be sentenced in February 2023.

Source: NBC New York

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