Sharif Al-Gamal Owes Over $200,000 In Back Taxes On The Ground Zero Mosque?

posted at 2:08 pm on August 30, 2010 by
[ Islam ]   

Originally posted at David Horowitz’s Newsreal:

The media narrative is focused completely on the people who oppose the Ground Zero mosque. The mosque’s opposition has focused almost exclusively on Imam Rauf. But what about the actual developer of the mosque? Sharif Al-Gamal is its developer, and he doesn’t seem like such a trustworthy guy. On top of having been arrested seven times, it turns out that Al-Gamal is also a tax cheat.

The New York Post reported that Al-Gamal owes over $200,000 in back property taxes on the proposed mosque site.

The mosque developers are tax deadbeats.

Sharif El-Gamal, the leading organizer behind the mosque and community center near Ground Zero, owes $224,270.77 in back property tax on the site, city records show.

El-Gamal’s company, 45 Park Place Partners, failed to pay its half-yearly bills in January and July, according to the city Finance Department.

The delinquency is a possible violation of El-Gamal’s lease with Con Edison, which owns half of the proposed building site on Park Place. El-Gamal owns the other half but must pay taxes on the entire parcel.

We’ve established a lot of troubling information about the people behind this Ground Zero mosque. You’ve got Imam Rauf, an advocate for sharia in America. Now it appears that the developer has a long record of multiple arrests and is a tax cheat. Yet somehow, Al-Gamal is getting the money to pay millions of dollars for this and other New York City properties over the last year.

Why isn’t anyone investigating this? We’ve got some very suspect Muslims wanting to build a mosque at the spot where Islamic terrorists have left a lifetime imprint of jihad in America. These two men aren’t exactly coming across as trustworthy, moderate Muslims, yet New York bureaucrats are falling all over themselves to ensure that this mosque is built. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi even said she wanted to investigate the people who opposed the mosque, and not the developers of the mosque itself!

Where is the mosque developer getting the money for this project? Why are they so set on building a mosque at Ground Zero? How do we know that Imam Rauf or Sharif Al-Gamal don’t have ties to Islamic terrorist groups in the Middle East? We have the answers to none of these questions, yet lefty politicians are ready to go full-speed ahead with this mosque. It’s a disgrace. These are questions that we need to know the answers to, and we need them before this mosque is allowed to be built.

9-11, one of the darkest days in American history, happened less than ten years ago. Part of the reason why it happened was because we as a country were blissfully unaware of the dangers of Islamic terrorism. Have we really learned so little since then?

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I don’t know how prevalent this problem is, either in this part of Manhattan or the whole borough. I understand NYC to be as subject to politicization and cronyism as other big cities, when it comes to property taxes and fees for the high-profile and connected. Not that that’s an excuse in any situation, but the Park 51 center owners may not be the only ones getting a break along these lines. (I bet their tax woes don’t get them evicted or the property auctioned off, as might happen after a year or two to the less well-connected.)

But when/if the back taxes are paid, it would be very illuminating to know where the money came from.

J.E. Dyer on August 30, 2010 at 2:27 PM

Would a mosque lead to tax-free status?

Hmmm…

cs89 on August 30, 2010 at 3:45 PM

The imam isn’t exactly a saint in matters financial either. As noted here, he’s a slumlord. Aren’t these people supposedly about compassion?

Howard Portnoy on August 30, 2010 at 3:56 PM

The Shariff won’t like it.

Inanemergencydial on August 30, 2010 at 5:55 PM

It boggles the mind to try to imagine what could possibly lead Pelosi to even consider investigating opponents of this thumb in the eye of America.

A seasoned politician such as the Speaker going this route would seem unthinkable in any other time besides this bizarre period in which we’ve been existing since Jan. 2009.

There is just no good explanation for this behavior.

hillbillyjim on August 30, 2010 at 10:38 PM

The Sharif is near!

Have we really learned so little???

I’d say about 70% of Americans know exactly what is going on and they don’t like it.

gordo on September 5, 2010 at 10:58 AM