“My son was a normal American guy,” ... "Then he became a Muslim and he changed.”

Terror suspect Jose Pimentel’s mom says sorry to city: 

‘I feel very bad ... I thank the police’ 

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Monday, November 21 2011, 11:20 AM

The building on W. 137th St. in Manhattan where alleged homegrown terror suspect Jose Pimentel, 27, lived with his family.

The mother of homegrown terror suspect Jose Pimentel says she loves the city — and her son.

“I want to apologize to the City of New York,” Carmen Sosa, 56, said Monday in the lobby of a Harlem apartment building.

“I love the city. I’ve been here since 1987 and I’m very disappointed with what my son was doing. I didn’t raise him that way.

“I feel very bad about the situation. I thank the police. They did what they’re supposed to do.”

Sosa said her son’s personality began to change after the then-teenager swapped salsa for Islam about five years ago.

“My son was a normal American guy,” she said. “He did what young people do. Then he became a Muslim and he changed.”

Pimentel, 27, was born in the Dominican Republic but raised in Manhattan until a move to Schenectady about 2005.

That year, he was busted for stealing credit card information from a customer at a store where he worked and using it to try to buy a computer, prosecutors said.

He ultimately pleaded guilty to a stolen property charge and was sentenced to five years’ probation.

While in Schenectady, he got married and had a son, who is now 4, his mother said.

The marriage was troubled. Cops were called to the house twice in 2008 for reports of domestic violence.
After a 2009 divorce, Pimentel failed to pay more than $9,000 in child support, and three warrants have been issued, records show.

Schenectady County District Attorney Robert Carney said there was nothing in
Pimentel’s court file “speaking to anything about terrorism” — but the suspect’s mother was getting worried about his fascination with Islam.

When he started reading the Koran in 2001, Sosa wasn’t happy because she’s a Catholic, but she noted that “in beginning, he wasn’t a fanatic.”

“He prayed and went to the mosque,” she said.

Over time, he stopped writing and listening to salsa music and spent his days praying, reading and sleeping.

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