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A 56-year-old New Jersey school board president told a civil sexual abuse trial jury Wednesday that he met four of his six “religious wives” when they were 18 as he denied accusations he groomed one whom he taught in middle school.
Camden School Advisory Board President Wasim Muhammad delved into his multiple marital relationships on the stand, which he admitted is “an exception and not the rule” and “very controversial,” according to a Philadelphia Inquirer report.
A 45-year-old woman is suing Muhammad, who is a minister and community activist in the Garden State city, for allegedly sexually abusing her when she was a minor. The alleged abuse began when he was her 7th-grade social studies middle school teacher in 1994 and carried on for multiple years, she claims.
The 2021 lawsuit accuses Muhammad, a father of 17, of dragging his ex-student to a porn theater where he made her have sex with a stranger as he creepily watched after she returned to Camden following a few years out of state.
“I ask myself why did this happen?” the plaintiff testified last week, according to the outlet. “Why did he do this to me? Who would do this to a 13-year-old girl? There are no answers for me.’”
The school official has denied wrongdoing, calling the allegations “heinous.”
Muhammad said he and the plaintiff married in 1997, but the plaintiff has denied the two ever wed.
He claimed on the stand he married the plaintiff when he was about 30 years old after she got back from the South and started living with him, according to the Inquirer.
His legal marriage is with his high school sweetheart, Stephanie, and then four others are under his Islamic faith, including his second wife who he met when she was an 18-year-old working at a local mall. The mall worker also wed Muhammad in 1997.
He also acknowledged another marriage that later ended.
After he said that four of six Muslim wives were 18 when he met, the plaintiff’s lawyer, Jeffrey Fritz, asked him, “You see a pattern here?”
“If you want to say so,” Muhammad replied, the newspaper reported.
Muhammad reportedly said his relationship with the plaintiff stopped in 1998 after Stephanie objected once she found out about it.
Muhammad remains a member of the Camden school board where he has served for more than a decade. He has been on a leave of absence since January, NJ.com reported.
The civil trial was expected to have closing arguments on Thursday.
