Many people are saying that this time the criminal justice system has worked for the community
Najee Ali received four years in state prison today for attempted bribery after he pleaded ‘no contest to an attempted bribery charge stemming from an incident which involved his daughter. Ali had been a tormentor to many residents in the Black community and always seemed to be involved in heated confrontations – verbal and at times, physical – with several respected members of the community and even public officials.
Ali has had confrontations with many well-respected elected officials and community leaders including Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke, Councilman and former police chief Bernard Parks, Brother Tony Muhammad of the Nation of Islam, Laura Hendricks, a merchant in Leimert Park and even his former father-in-law, Imam Warith D. Muhammad. He has a reputation of antagonizing members of the community, forcibly intervening in the affairs of families during their time of crisis, and showing up and/calling press conferences to promote himself. Some of the mainstream media are complicit in Ali’s less-than-honorable behavior; they seem to parade him as a leader which actually insults the community where he is generally considered a person non-grata and a predator.
Hendricks is one of the individuals whom Ali has intimidated to the point that she had to get a restraining order against him. When told that he had been sent to prison, she said, “I think it’s about time that some of these things he has been doing catch up with him because he’s been slipping and sliding all through the system …. So it’s about time, that’s the way I feel.”
The slipping and sliding through the system that Hendricks referred to are the numerous encounters Ali has had with the law. He was arrested for hit-and-run for leaving the scene of an accident while he was on bail for another charge of purchasing false documents to be able to get two drivers licenses from the Department of Motor Vehicles.
A call to Councilman Parks office generated the following statement from his chief of staff, Bernard Parks Jr. – Ali had tried to takeover a press conference the councilman was conducting concerning in his official capacity. Parks Jr. said, “The United States has a criminal justice system that we believe in and it appears, in this case, it has worked. Najee had repeatedly been on the wrong side of the law on a number of different issues. It’s unfortunate but that’s what the legal process is there for: to weed out wrong doers and that’s what it’s all about.”
Ali often claims to be an Imam in the Muslim community though his actions portray just the opposite. According to a Muslim spokesman, an Imam is the head of a mosque. There is no mosque that Ali is the head of and some members of the Muslim brotherhood considered him a trouble-maker. On hearing the news of Ali’s incarceration, one Muslim brother said, “He was a fake, he got what he deserved.”
Over the years, where Ali derives his income has always been a mystery. He has no job, no credible source of income and calls himself the president of Project Islamic Hope (PIH). Sentinel research has not been able to uncover what PIH does, where it is located, its phone number or any listing with the state or the IRS as a non-profit, tax-exempt organization.
