He says he didn’t know the blades were there, and apparently, that is good enough for the grand jury. An update on this story. “No Indictment for Jail Chaplain,” by Anahad O’Connor for the New York Times, February 9:
A grand jury declined on Tuesday to indict a Muslim chaplain for the city’s Department of Correction who was accused of trying to smuggle a pair of scissors and several metal blades into a Manhattan jail.
The chaplain, Imam Zulqarnain Abu-Shahid, 58, was charged with promoting prison contraband last week after officials said he tried to enter the Manhattan Detention Complex with the items stowed in a shoulder bag. The chaplain, who was being held in jail without bail, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment last Wednesday and said through his lawyer that he did not know that the blades were in his bag when he entered the building.
The grand jury’s decision on Tuesday forced his release. Prosecutors can still choose to seek another indictment, but it was unclear on Tuesday whether that would happen. Erin Duggan, a spokeswoman for Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, said late Tuesday that the office had no comment.
The chaplain’s lawyer, James McQueeney, did not respond to a phone call seeking comment Tuesday night.
The case against Imam Abu-Shahid began last Wednesday morning, when he arrived for work at the detention complex, at 125 White Street. Employees and visitors are routinely asked to slide their bags through an X-ray machine at the entrance. As the chaplain’s bag slid through the machine, officers spotted a pair of scissors and three metal blades — the kind used in box cutters — concealed in the bag’s outer flap, the authorities said….