(CHICAGO) A Naperville man was sentenced on Thursday to five years for stealing $450,000 from a west suburban mosque and school where he used to work.
Inam Rahim, 61, had entered a plea of guilty to one felony count of theft more than $100,000 on March 23 and is now is required to serve half of his five year sentence before being eligible for parole, according to the DuPage County State’s Attorney Office. In exchange for his plea, additional charges were dismissed by the state.
Judge John Kinsella handed down the sentence during a hearing Thursday, prosecutors said.
In 1999, Rahim began working as the Director of Business and Finance at the Islamic Foundation, a Villa Park-based religious organization that includes a mosque and a school, prosecutors said. In this role, he was responsible for handling the payroll and bills.
From January 2009 through July 2011 he embezzled about $450,000 of the foundation’s money, despite having an authorized annual salary of $69,500, prosecutors said.
Rahim added his wife on the foundation’s payroll, inflated his own paycheck and issued unauthorized checks to Yoomna’s Boutique in Naperville, a company made up of himself and his wife, officials said. He then falsified the accounting records of the payments.
In July 2011, the foundation uncovered discrepancies during a payroll review conducted after his termination for unrelated reasons, prosecutors said. Foundation officials brought the matter to police and fully cooperated with the investigation.
In April 2012, Rahim, of the 1700 block of Conan Doyle Road in Naperville, was charged with two counts of theft and was released after paying the $20,000 of his $200,000 bond, prosecutors said. In 2013 he was also charged with one count of identity theft and one count of organizing a continuing financial crimes enterprise.
“Week after week, Mr. Rahim systematically defrauded and betrayed the trust of a religious and educational organization that made the mistake of trusting him with its finances,” DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert B. Berlin said in a statement.
Rahim will begin serving his sentence immediately and was also ordered to pay back the money to the Islamic Foundation.
