A former PricewaterhouseCoopers accountant who cased the New York Stock Exchange for an al Qaeda bomb plot was slapped with 18 years behind bars Monday.
Number-crunching terrorist spy Sabirhan Hasanoff, 37, walked into Manhattan federal court smiling at about 20 relatives and friends in the gallery. But his grin was quickly wiped off by Judge Kimba Wood.
While noting the “enormous letters of support” she received from the turncoat American’s friends and family painting him “as a caring, loving . . . man,” Wood said, “None of that deterred him from leaving his family to die in jihad against Americans.”
“There’s no way for me to know if he’s changed, [or] if when he’s released, he would go back to be a combative jihadist,” the judge said.
Wood then gave the former Brooklyn resident the maximum sentence minus two years time served.
The Baruch College-educated accountant pleaded guilty to funneling up to $300 a week to al Qaeda overseas.
A Web geek, Hasanoff also was accused of using his “advanced computer knowledge’’ to help the group exchange secret messages over the Internet.
In addition, he “cased” the NYSE in a plot to blow it up and even helped buy bomb-making equipment such as remote-control-car devices for the potentially deadly plan, authorities have said.
He was busted in the United Arab Emirates in 2010.
Before his sentencing, Hasanoff said, “I’m very sorry for my conduct. I should have known better. There is no excuse.
“I apologize to the court, the country and my family, particularly my kids,’’ he said.
Hasanoff had two American cohorts: fellow Brooklynite Wesam El-Hanafi, 38, and former New Yorker and Kansas City auto-parts dealer Khalid Quazzani, 35. Quazzani later turned rat.
Authorities said Hasanoff traveled to Yemen in 2008 and received orders from al Qaeda higher-ups — including one known only as “Doctor’’ — to plan terrorist acts.
The NYSE plot was in “the very initial stages’’ when uncovered, the feds have said.
Hasanoff was born in China to a family that belongs to the Islamic ethnic minority group called Uighurs,
The family moved to Australia when he was a boy, and he then came to New York City as a teen, attending Abraham Lincoln HS.
He has both American and Australian citizenship.
He worked as a senior manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers from 2003 to 2006.
El-Hanafi is still awaiting sentencing.