There is disbelief in the southeast Queens neighborhood where the two women charged in a terror plot lived. The husband and imam of one of the suspects say they are as surprised as anyone. NY1's Ruschell Boone filed the following report.
Abu Bakr said he was home with his wife, Noelle Velentzas, when federal agents busted in Thursday morning to arrest her on charges of plotting with her friend Asia Siddiqui to build a homemade bomb and detonate it in the U.S. Siddiqui was also arrested.
"I'm shocked. I'm surprised," he said. "Just like, it was a knock at the door and everything changed.
"I'm lost for words, but I am very upset. Very upset."
Velentzas and Siddiqui both attended a mosque on Sutphin Boulevard. The imam, Charles Aziz Bilal, said both women were quiet. He, too, is stunned by the arrest.
"That's not what we promote here," Bilal said. "We have spoke against that many, many times here. It's not our faith to deal with any kind of terrorism."
Bakr, his wife and Siddiqui all lived together in Queens at one point, but he said he never heard the women discussing any type of terror plot.
"There were no signs of any kind of violence or positions that would seem far-fetched," Bakr said. "They were just two normal women."
Velentzas has two daughters, a 5-year-old that's biological and an 11-year-old the couple adopted. Bakr said she was a loving wife and mother.
According to the federal complaint, Velentzas repeatedly "expressed violent jihadist ideology" and expressed sympathy for Islamic State fighters as she pursued her bomb plot.
"That's not true. That's not true," Bakr said. "I can't see it. I can't. I can't see it."
Even so, Bakr said he will still support his wife. He was not at her arraignment, but when NY1 spoke with him, he was trying to hire an attorney for her.