In December 1976, Paul Pitts was with a group of men who shot and killed a customer during a Harlem supermarket robbery. He was convicted of murder and did a 14 year bid upstate, getting paroled in 1993. (A prior sex assault charge against him was dismissed before the murder case.) During his time in prison, Pitts found religion, and subsequently changed his name to Zulqarnain Abdu-Shahid. For the past few years he's been paid $49,471 a year to serve as a Muslim chaplain for the Department of Correction, but yesterday he was arrested once again, this time for trying to bring three metal blades and a pair of scissors into the Manhattan Detention Complex at 125 White Street.
The blades were detected when he passed his bag through an X-ray machine at the entrance. During his arraignment last night, James M. McQueeney, the chaplain’s lawyer, insisted his client did not know the blades were in the bag when he entered the jail. "He has completely reformed his life," McQueeney tells the Times, adding that Abdu-Shahid resides with his wife and two children on Staten Island. Of course, one source at Correction Dept. was eager to frame the incident in terms that NY Post readers can easily understand, calling it"a disgrace that taxpayers are funding Muslim chaplains who not only have criminal records, but also are promoting violence." Obama's probably mixed up in this somehow, too.
Alexandra Lane, an assistant D.A., did not explain any potential motive for why Imam Abu-Shahid took the blades and scissors into the jail. He's charged with promoting prison contraband and was immediately suspended, and is being held in lieu of $30,000 bail. "Additional steps, up to and including dismissal, will be pursued consistent with the findings of [the DOI]," said Correction Commissioner Dora Schriro in a statement. Louis Singleton, the superintendent at a Manhattan building Abdu-Shahid manages as a second job, tells the News he must be innocent, because, "He wouldn't jeopardize his career. It doesn't make sense."
