to New York’s Mayor Bloomberg?

Court orders slum landlord Rauf to pay up

Washington, DC 10/14/2010by William J Murray – A New Jersey Superior Court judge has ordered Imam Feisal Rauf to reimburse Union City, New Jersey for the salary of off-duty police officers who were forced to stand watch for 10 days outside an apartment building he owns, because he refused to install a working fire alarm system. The judge also ordered rent money from the month of October held in an escrow account rather than being paid to Rauf because of  more than 200 other fire and health code violations Union City inspectors have found, including moldy bathrooms, and infestations.

Of course, the imam’s attorney blamed persecution for the lawsuit: “There were no violations that were given notice until the problems with respect to the mosque in New York,” said lawyer Thomas Espinosa. “What I believe is that it is clear that something attracted attention.” What attracts many people’s attention is the fact that Imam Ruaf could find someone to plunk down $150 million bucks to buy a building at Ground Zero, but could not afford to have a working fire alarm in an apartment building he owns.

Rauf received government money for slum properties

Imam Feisel Rauf has had numerous “low income” properties for which he received millions of dollars from the government to develop. Rauf received a $384,000 loan endorsed by Sen. Bob Menendez (D., N.J.), plus $1,295,000 underwritten Hudson County, NJ.  Despite all the government funding, several of his properties were foreclosed on and he was sued by at least one of his business associates for “misrepresenting” the properties in question. Somehow, Imam Rauf manages to come up with people to front him money for even bigger ventures such as the mosque at Ground Zero which he now claims will be more of a secular center making a profit than a mosque … BUT … Rauf still wants a tax exemption for his new building at Ground Zero.

State Department sued over Rauf links
On August 13^th the Religious Freedom Coalition filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Department of State demanding details of its dealings with Imam Feisal Rauf including his paid trips to the Middle East to discuss “the role of religion” in American society. The State Department, of course, will not pay any Christian theologian to travel or speak anywhere because of “separation of church and state.” It appears that this rule does not apply to Muslims. The State Department acknowledged that they received the Religious Freedom Coalition’s FOIA request, but have so far refused to furnish the information. Several other organizations made the same request in August, including the Liberty Counsel and Judicial Watch. By law the State Department was required to furnish the information to us by September 23^rd, and to Judicial Watch by September 24^th, which they have not done. Judicial Watch, which has attorneys on staff, has now filed a lawsuit against the State Department demanding that the information be furnished.

Imam Rauf’s cozy relationship did not begin with the Obama Administration. Despite the fact that he blamed the United States in part for the 9-11 jihad attack on the United States, it was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who first hired Feisal Rauf. Apparently she sent him to the Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar in February 2006 and then to Bahrain, Morocco, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates in 2007. In 2101 he was paid to attend the Bureau of International Information Programs in Egypt and then of course this past summer the State Department sent him on his “role of religion” tour of the Middle East.

The Religious Freedom Coalition is working with the Liberty Counsel and Judicial Watch to get the truth from the State Department on Imam Rauf and any other Muslim leaders employed by the State Department to travel to the Middle East. Judicial Watch has now filed a lawsuit against the State Department to obtain the information on Rauf and others.