10/18/22, 2:47 PM Columbus mosque director who embezzled nearly $50,000 pleads guilty

COURTS

Former Columbus mosque director pleads

guilty to embezzlement, fraud
Danae King
The Columbus Dispatch
Published 2:01 p.m. ET Oct. 13, 2022

The former director of a local mosque admitted in federal court on Thursday to embezzling
funds, defrauding public housing and filing for fraudulent COVID-19 assistance money.

Ahmed A. Sh. Ahmed, 43, of Gahanna, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and submitting and
making false statements, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Southern District of Ohio office.

Ahmed was the director of Ibn Taymiyah Masjid and Islamic Center on the city’s Northeast
Side from at least 2009 until March 2019, according to court documents, and used his
position to embezzle nearly $50,000 from the mosque.

Ahmed wrote unauthorized checks from the center’s accounts to himself, increasing the
amount he took every year from 2015 to 2018. In 2015, he gave himself $4,500. This was
followed by $11,000 in 2016; $12,900 in 2017; and $21,000 in 2018, according to the U.S.
Attorney's Office.

With the money he took, Ahmed paid off personal credit cards and bought a car. He must pay
more than $37,400 in restitution to the center as part of his plea.

For at least six years, Ahmed also used false information to get housing subsidies he didn’t
qualify for from the Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority, claiming his income was
$18,000 annually. He reported no household assets, but he and his wife had deposited more
than $235,000 into their bank accounts from 2014 to 2018.

Ahmed also committed fraud by applying for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance nine
times from August until October 2020. Meanwhile, he was getting paid at least $4,000
during that time through his YouTube channel.

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10/18/22, 2:47 PM Columbus mosque director who embezzled nearly $50,000 pleads guilty

Ahmed has not been sentenced, but, according to the court, wire fraud is a sentence of up to
20 years in prison and federal charges of making and submitting false claims carry a
potential maximum sentence of five years in prison.

dking@dispatch.com

@DanaeKing

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