Former Lexington imam sentenced to prison, $20,000 fine after kidnapping conspiracy plea
A former Lexington imam was sentenced Monday to two years in prison in connection with a kidnapping plot.
Mahmoud Shaker Shalash pleaded guilty in January to federal charges of conspiring to kidnap someone and two counts of money laundering, according to court records.
Shalash will serve five years of supervised release at the end of his two-year prison sentence, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky. The supervised release will include one year of home incarceration. Shalash was ordered to pay a $20,000 fine and forfeit $81,861.99.
Shalash, the former imam of the Islamic Center of Lexington, was also accused of being involved in a murder-for-hire conspiracy. That count was dismissed as part of the plea agreement, according to court records. He has not been associated with the Islamic Center since May 2019, according to the center.
A man known as John Sadiqullah, whose actual first name is unknown, was convicted in February of being involved in the conspiracy to kidnap another man and the murder-for-hire conspiracy. A third defendant in the case, Abdul Hadi, was acquitted of the charges against him.
At Sadiqullah and Hadi’s trial, federal prosecutors argued that the two and Shalash had conspired to kidnap a man to whom they’d all loaned money and to hire someone to murder the victim.
The alleged plot to kidnap and facilitate the murder of the victim was uncovered during a money-laundering investigation against Shalash, attorneys said at the trial.
Sadiqullah is set to be sentenced in July according to court records. At the time of his conviction, the U.S. attorney’s office reported he could face up to a life sentence in prison.
This story was originally published June 23, 2020 at 8:12 AM.
