The religion of peace in action:
A city Department of Correction Muslim chaplain who served 14 years in prison for murder and robbery was arrested today for carrying three utility blades and a pair of scissors into a lower Manhattan jail, authorities said.
The chaplain, Zulqarnain Abdu-Shahid, had the utility blades and scissors in his duffel bag when he arrived at the Manhattan Detention Complex in the morning, according to the city Department of Investigation.
The dangerous items were found after an X-ray machine alerted correction officers to the presence of metal in the bag, the DOI said.
Authorities did not say why Abdu-Shahid was visiting the jail, commonly known as the Tombs, or why he was carrying the scissors and the rectangular blades, which were 1-and-1/2 inches long by three-quarters of an inch wide.
Abdu-Shahid, 58, was arrested at the scene and charged with four counts of first-degree promoting prison contraband — a felony carrying a maximum 7-year prison term — and four counts of the same charge in the second degree, a misdemeanor.
[…]
His lawyer, James McQueeney said the blades were ‘injector razor blades from an injector razor,” and that when Abdu-Shahid told that to the correction officers who stopped him, “his explanation that he didn’t know there were there [in the duffel bag] was accepted.”
“He was allowed into the” Tombs after the blades were confiscated,” McQueeney said. “Only later were questions raised about this.”
Despite that claim, DOI Commissioner Rose Gil Hearn said, “This arrest demonstrates the serious consequences of bringing in contraband to the city’s correctional facilities.”
“Thanks to the immediate action of a DOC officer, this potentially dangerous situation was disarmed.”
Correction Commissioner Dora Schriro said Abdu-Shahid was immediately suspended.
This is the worst part of the story though:
Abdu-Shahid was hired as a Muslim imam chaplain by the DOC three years ago tomorrow, and has a salary of $49,471 annually.
State Corrections Department records show that he entered state prison in September 1979 to begin serving a sentence of 15-years-to-life for a second-degree murder and a first-degree robbery committed in Manhattan. He was paroled in August 1993, and finished his parole in August 2001.
According to news accounts at the time, the cleric, a Brooklyn resident then known as Paul Pitts, was convicted with three other defendants in 1979 after the longest criminal trial in New York State Supreme Court history – one year, three months and three days.
Pitts and his co-defendants had held up a Harlem supermarket on Dec. 9, 1976, and during the robbery shot and killed a 30-year-old customer named Philip Crawford.
The Post also has learned that his criminal record includes an arrest for sexual assault in Queens, but that case later was dismissed.
Abdu-Shahid’s lawyer, McQueeney, said, “He’s been out of prison since the early ’90s. He’s completely reformed.”
But a city Correction source said of Abdu-Shahid’s arrest, “It’s a disgrace that taxpayers are funding Muslim chaplains who not only have criminal records, but also are promoting violence.”
Abdu-Shahid’s boss — head chaplain Umar Abdul-Jalil — himself was hired by the DOC despite having done a 14-year stint in prison for drug dealing.
Not even a decade after 9/11 New york is using murderers, rapists and drug dealers as paid spiritual guides for Muslim criminals? Really?
h/t Jawa Report
