Teen visited WTC only 3 times before breach

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Justin Alexander Casquejo allegedly slipped past four layers of WTC security and spent two hours atop the tallest building in the United States, until he was finally discovered by a construction worker.Facebook
Casquejo perches atop a fence facing the World Trade Center. Facebook
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Casquejo hangs from a crane in Hoboken.Twitter
Casquejo (right) climbs a crane in Hoboken.Twitter
Casquejo stands on a crane in Hoboken.Twitter
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Casquejo jumps into the Hudson River from the New Jersey side.Twitter
Casquejo leaves his Weehawken, NJ, apartment building en route to high school holding a copy of The New York Post with his story in it.Robert Kalfus
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It took three dorky teens from New Jersey just three visits to the World Trade Center site to hatch their plan to breach the supposedly secure terror target, they said on Thursday.

Justin Casquejo and his two best pals cased the WTC site three times “to get a feel for security,” said Steven Peralta, 16, of North Bergen, who has known Justin since they were 2.

They scoped out Ground Zero several times, including a final time on Friday afternoon.

“We went a total of two times together and Justin went one other time alone. We thought it would be a regular construction area, but it turns out there’s a lot of security,” Peralta said.

But that didn’t shake their confidence one iota.

Casquejo hangs from a crane in Hoboken.Twitter

“We all knew he was going to get in. We planned everything. We searched and circled the location,” said the other buddy, Trevor Gidden, 16.

The pals had no doubt Justin would pull it off.

“He left my house at 9:30 Saturday night and I wished him good luck. He looked confident. He’s Justin Casquejo. He looked like he was going to do it,” Peralta said.

Although all three helped plan the shocking caper, they knew it would be Justin who went in alone.

“We’re all crazy but he’s [Justin] the one with the balls.”

On Thursday, Justin was basking in his 1,776 feet of fame.

“Wow. Geez. This is crazy. I knew what I did was a big deal but I didn’t think it was going to be this big,” he told us before strutting into school with a copy of The Post. “I’m gonna be stalked like a celebrity now, right? How long is this going to last?”

Casquejo’s caper was the talk of Weehawken High School, where the administration mentioned it during morning announcements and instructed students not to speak with reporters, a teacher told The Post.

Casquejo walks to school this morning carrying The Post, but he’s done much more dangerous things, like standing on a crane in Hoboken (right).Robert Kalfus, Facebook

“The school has Justin sequestered away right now,” the teacher said.

“They’re not letting him go outside because they are aware of the media attention.”

One of Casquejo’s pals described him as a “daredevil” and “adrenaline junkie” who’s into the French sport of parkour, in which participants race around urban environments as if running an obstacle course.

Patrick Flores, 18, recalled once seeing Casquejo, then in seventh grade, hanging from the roof of their school by one hand and saying, “What’s up, guys?”

“He loves the rush. He’s one of the craziest guys in the world,” Flores said.

Flores said the two of them used to ride skateboards together, adding: “I wasn’t nearly as good as him. I couldn’t keep up.”

Meanwhile, construction workers at the World Trade Center site were furious that the high-school junior was able to breach four layers of police and private security and climb all the way onto the iconic spire of the nation’s tallest building — a prime terrorist target.

“Rings of security my ass!” one hardhat groused.

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Another said it was “scary” that Casquejo was able to pull off the stunt so easily.

“This place has a big bull’s-eye on it, and I don’t even want to think what could have happened if it was somebody with bad intentions,” he added.

As reported exclusively by The Post, the skinny teen squeezed through the barbed-wire fence surrounding Ground Zero around 4 a.m. Sunday and conned a clueless elevator operator into giving him a lift up to the tower’s 88th floor.

He then hiked up the stairs to the 104th floor, slipped past a snoozing security guard and made his way onto the antenna mast.

The teen spent two hours hours snapping photos with a camera and cell phone, but got nabbed on his way out by an alert construction worker, who held him for cops.

He was charged with misdemeanor trespassing. The sleeping guard was immediately fired, and the elevator operator — who has union protection — was reassigned, sources have said.

Red-faced Port Authority cops are still investigating the failures that let Casquejo run wild around Ground Zero.

“We take security and these types of infractions extremely seriously and will prosecute violators,” PA Chief Security Officer Joseph Dunne said in a statement.

“We continue to re-assess our security posture at the site and are constantly working to make this site as secure as possible.”