Former CAIR Community Organizer Arrested on Child Sex Charges

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CAIR press photo

Ahmed Saleem, a Muslim youth coordinator and former CAIR community organizer, was arrested along with 100 others in a sting operation on a child sex ring in Florida, police said in a conference on Tuesday.

Saleem, pictured above with a beard, was among 22 men accused by police of travelling to the home of a minor they met online to have sex. In reality, police officers posed in a chatroom as a 12-year-old girl, and then arrested Saleem when he arrived at the house.

“He’s well known as a community outreach leader interacting with teens in and around the Orlando area,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said about Saleem.

According to investigators, Saleem’s car had a license plate which said “Invest in our children.”

CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, is a national civil liberties organization, which advocates on behalf of Muslims in America. Saleem worked for CAIR’s Florida chapter for two months at the beginning of this year.

In a statement released to Breitbart News, CAIR Florida said that the organization is “shocked and deeply concerned by the crimes Ahmed Saleem is alleged to have committed.”

Saleem left CAIR in April to start his own organization, Saleem Academy, which was dedicated to empowering Islamic youth worldwide. He worked with CAIR for two months before leaving.

“CAIR Florida removed him as an employee from our website and began recruiting a new candidate for the position prior to learning of the allegations against him,” CAIR’s statement continued. “CAIR Florida takes the safety and security of the community very seriously and as such we attempt to thoroughly vet any potential employment candidates through standard hiring practices.”

Saleem Academy’s website has been taken down since Saleem’s arrest, and now has been replaced with a 404 page with this message: “Closed. May God bless you, guide you, and illuminate the right path for you, and keep you firm on it. Keep me in your prayers.”

At the press conference, Sheriff Judd held up a photo of Saleem at a playground to highlight the fact that “Offenders don’t stop offending.”

Other men arrested in the sting operation include former SeaWorld, Universal Orlando, and Disney World employees—all of whom had access to children at their jobs.

“We’re after you. We’re after you with a vengeance,” Judd said during the press conference. “We’re going to stay after you and put you in prison where you belong. You’re going to stay away from our kids.”

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