Imam
Found With Razor Blades at City Jail
New York Times
By AL BAKER
Published:
February 3, 2010
A
Muslim chaplain for the city’s Department of Correction showed up for work on
Wednesday as he routinely does — entering the city jail in Lower Manhattan to
minister to some of the roughly 900 male inmates there.
But
when the chaplain, Imam Zulqarnain Abu-Shahid, flung his shoulder bag onto an
X-ray machine at the entrance of the Manhattan Detention Complex, at
Imam
Abu-Shahid was arrested and charged with various counts of promoting prison
contraband.
Later,
officials made another discovery: The chaplain was an ex-convict who had been
found guilty with three other men of the murder of a customer during a robbery
of a supermarket in
The
chaplain’s name at the time was Paul Pitts, officials said.
He
served nearly 14 years in state prison before being released on parole in 1993,
said Erik Kriss, a spokesman for the State Department of Correctional Services.
His conviction in 1979 occurred after what, at the time, was
described as the longest criminal trial in the history of the State Supreme
Court system.
Some
of the chaplain’s background came out at his arraignment in Manhattan Criminal
Court on Wednesday evening.
James
M. McQueeney, the chaplain’s lawyer, said that his client did not know the
blades were in the bag when he entered the jail. He said that was what Imam
Abu-Shahid told officers at the X-ray machine.
The
officers allowed Imam Abu-Shahid to go to his work station on a lower floor,
but detained him later, when he came back upstairs, Mr. McQueeney said.
As
for the chaplain’s past, Mr. McQueeney said, “He has completely reformed his
life” and lives with his wife and two children on
Officials
with the city’s Department of Correction said that the chaplain, who joined the
department in February 2007 and earns $49,471 a year, was immediately suspended
without pay.
“Additional
steps, up to and including dismissal, will be pursued consistent with the
findings of the Department of Investigation,” Dora Schriro, the commissioner of
the Correction Department, said in a statement.
Stephen
J. Morello, a Correction Department spokesman, later added that in light of the
chaplain’s criminal background, Ms. Schriro “has directed a full review of the
circumstances of his hiring.” He said that Imam Abu-Shahid had been regularly
assigned to the Manhattan Detention Complex, also known as the Tombs.
Officials
said that Imam Abu-Shahid was in a group of men who were trapped by the police
in the Finast Supermarket at
John Eligon and William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting