Sarah Koenig
๐ค SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
I heard various versions of how this happened or could have happened.
But from what I can tell, the basic story is people who come to pray on Fridays, and it's a lot of people, many hundreds, some of them put donation money into boxes.
Two people told me they saw him do it.
One person told me he'd seen it several times.
This is a guy I can't name, whose voice we've also changed.
This guy estimated that Adnan had stolen many thousands of dollars over time, tens of thousands, maybe $100,000.
This sounded fantastical to me, so I checked with Makbul Patel.
He was president of the Islamic Society of Baltimore at the time.
He said he'd never heard of Adnan taking donation money, but that it does happen from time to time, someone stealing or trying to.
There are people who take shoes, he added.
My own brand new shoes were stolen.
Twice he said that happened, once in New York and once in Baltimore.
But if Adnan did take money, he said, there's no way it was a big amount.
He said on average, people donated about $2,500 at Friday prayers, maybe up to $3,000 if it was a special occasion.
That money was used to pay the bills, he said, keep the electricity and heat on.