Wednesday, September 1, 2010
While martyrs on the left screech about “religious freedoms,” and ignore the wishes of 2/3rds of 9/11 families, details about the mosque developer’s lengthy criminal record have started to emerge.
Please meet Mosque developer Sharif El-Gamal.
Sharif El-Gamal is not only a liar but enjoys a criminal record going back to at least 1990.
According to records uncovered by CBS 2 News in New York:
· In 1990, he was arrested in Nassau County and pled guilty to disorderly conduct
· In 1992, he pled guilty in Nassau to DWI and paid a $350 fine
· In 1993, he pled guilty in Nassau to attempted petit larceny and paid a $100 fine
· In 1994, arrested for disorderly conduct in Manhattan
· In 1998, there was another Manhattan disorderly conduct arrest.
· In 1999, yet another Manhattan disorderly conduct arrest
A potential problem for El-Gamal is a deposition he gave in the assault case in October 2007. When asked if he was ever convicted or pled guilty to a crime, he replied “no.”
El-Gamal owes over $227,000 in unpaid real estate taxes and a spokesman for the Department of Finance said interest will be added for each and every day its unpaid.
His most recent arrest was in 2005 for assault on a man he met while working as a waiter at Serafina Restaurant, who sublet an apartment from his brother. He reportedly punched the man, breaking his nose and cheekbone and spit on him.
El-Gamal first said he didn’t hit the man, but arrest documents obtained by CBS 2 showed he later conceded, “his face could have run into my hand.”
Another question surrounding the debate is whether the Muslim cleric of the mosque, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, knew about El-Gamal’s violent criminal background and unpaid taxes before partnering with him or even cared?
From the Left 
If you’re from New York you learned long ago that 90% of development has some criminal element in it.
Whether involving organized crime, payola, or glad handing to politicians. This is the filthy grease of New York development. Even street vendors who operate hot dog stands now pay rival gangs to protect them from other gangs who wait to rob them. New York is a nasty place.
Someone should do a little digging to uncover how much money Sharif El-Gamal gave to the campaigns of Mayor Bloomberg and the entire New York City council who unanimously voted “YES” to building this Islamic mosque. There’s the real, potential scandal.
Excellent piece, Christopher.
Again, the sort of information you would expect to see in the New York Times or the Washington Post but don’t because the mainstream media is afraid to do their job. Investigative journalism in America today has become the exclusive realm of bloggers, not on the payroll of corporate America.
Sharif El-Gamal is a piece of shit. A violent thug who belongs in prison.
I agree, Tom339. This is great information and I want to thank Christopher for printing it. Sharif El-Gamal has a propensity for violence and driving while under the influence of alcohol. Is this what the 9/11 mosque will be used for? A place to party and drink? I’m no expert but I thought Muslims shunned drunkenness? Plus, we’re constantly being fed that Islam is all about love and peace. I guess the message is lost on Sharif El-Gamal.
The left and the right needs to educate themselves about the meaning of the name “Cordoba” and why it of all names, Cordoba was chosen.
In 712, the Muslims conquered the town of Cordoba, Spain and converted it’s greatest Christian church into the Great Mosque of Cordoba.
The lower Manhattan Islamic mosque is being painted as a harmless cultural center, which will include a gym, a day care center and a mosque when in fact, it’s the next phase in Sharia victory.
Islam brought down the World Trade Center towers and now, a mere 600 feet from the site of the crime, a victory mosque will rise.
When the sun goes down, the Cordoba House will be a party house with girls, booze and dope. You can bet the mosque on it.
Where, oh where, have been the Main Street media~douche bags all!~apropos all of these furtive threats by radicalized Islam?
The question that Joe in Colorado raises (“Someone should do a little digging…There’s the real, potential scandal.”) re possible pay to play is intriguing indeed!
Brilliant entry, Christopher! Thank you so very much! We’ll all stay tuned.
As the corporate-owned, mainstream media keeps dropping to its knees to fellate the Sharia branch of Islam, facts are coming to light about the Imam and his pals.
Here’s a gem.
Ground Zero Imam a Taxpayer-Subsidized Slumlord
The elitist, media-generated grand illusion of the Ground Zero mosque imam has begun to collapse under scrutiny.
New reports from The Record out of Hackensack, N.J., reveal Feisal Abdul Rauf, the would-be Ground Zero imam, owns taxpayer-subsidized apartment buildings in Hudson County where the tenants have made municipal health complaints including rat, roach and bedbug infestations, seeping toilets, leaks, urine-soaked hallways, no heat and no hot water.
Despite millions of dollars in government subsidies, Rauf has trouble maintaining several small apartment buildings in North Bergen, Palisades Park and Union City.
http://driftwood1.newsvine.com/_news/2010/08/30/5001839-ground-zero-imam-a-taxpayer-subsidized-slumlord-
vicodaniel1987@yahoo.com
It just gets better and better.
What annoys me about this mosque is the arrogance and contempt the developer and the Imam display for the majority of people still raw after the 9/11 attacks who say they don’t want the damned thing built.
Like insolent, arrogant children, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and Sharif El-Gamal are telling these people to f**k off.
It’s puzzling, to say the least, why POTUS gave his OK to the notion of allowing it!
I learned all I need to know about Islam on 9/11.
Personally, I do not think the Cordoba Mosque will ever be built. Here’s why.
9/11 Family Concerns Outweigh Muslim Right To Mosque, New York State Voters Tell Quinnipiac University Poll; 71 Percent Say Cuomo Should Probe Mosque Finances
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1318.xml?ReleaseID=1493
By a 71 – 21 percent majority, voters agree “that because of the opposition of Ground Zero relatives, the Muslim group should voluntarily build the mosque somewhere else.”
Does this guy happen to be Republican? I don’t know too many Dems that have that kind of rap sheet.
If there are 100 mosques already in New York City and public opposition to the Cordoba House is running 71% against, why is this Imam hell-bent on going forward and generating so much ill-will and hurt feelings?
It just makes no sense to me.
Matteo – If it gets built it will be courtesy of foreign funding and a foreign architect and construction effort because no one in the tri-state area wants to be involved in this controversy.
Plus, imagine the cost associated with security? The mosque will need security 24/7 on the scale of Fort Knox or the Pentagon.
El-Gamal owes over $227,000 in unpaid real estate property taxes and the morons who run Manhattan haven’t foreclosed on the building? No wonder New York is broke. In most suburban cities and towns, if your property taxes are late 90 days they will issue a foreclosure notice. Unbelievable.
Thank you for the voice of sanity and intelligence on this highly controversial and important issue.
I finally stopped watching Keith Olbermann after years of watching him because I became tired of the nightly insinuation that if you opposed the mosque, you are Islamophobic.
Talk about radical Islamic martyrdom.
David is correct. If El-Gamal owes over $227,000 in unpaid real estate property taxes. New York City has the legal authority to seize the property, take title and turn it over to a worthy non-profit. The controversy would die on the proverbial vine because El-Gamal would no longer own the building. Why hasn’t New York acted on this is the question?
Eh-I’ve been popped for disorderly and DUI both. I don’t see that as making me some kind of a violent criminal.
Perhaps Jolly Roger didn’t read this paragraph?
“His most recent arrest was in 2005 for assault on a man he met while working as a waiter at Serafina Restaurant, who sublet an apartment from his brother. He reportedly punched the man, breaking his nose and cheekbone and spit on him.”
This is felony assault. In when a Sharia Muslim does it.
Agreed. What El-Gamal did was felony assault.
People keep trying to brainwash everyone about the peaceful glories of Islam but from every example I see, there is nothing remotely peaceful about it.
Build it and it will burn. I give it 3 years max and the mosque will come a tumbling down. Bam!
I agree with David and Gleneagle. New York City will foreclose on a single mother’s cheapo condo because she’s behind on her taxes but Sharif El-Gamal owes the city more than a quarter million in property taxes and they refuse to foreclose because, in my opinion, he’s a Muslim. It wouldn’t be politically correct.