Man behind Jewelers Row kidnapping gets 30 years in prison
The mastermind behind the abduction and torture of a Jewelers Row shop clerk last year never once apologized as he was sentenced to more than 30 years in prison Friday.
The mastermind behind the abduction and torture of a Jewelers Row shop clerk last year never once apologized as he was sentenced to more than 30 years in prison Friday.
As recently as last month, Salahudin Shaheed was arguing that he would be vindicated by the testimony of his 54-year-old victim.
And though she was not in court as U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III handed down punishment for what he described as "the most heinous crime I have seen on my 25 years on the bench," reminders of the woman's torment hung over every part of the proceeding - except Shaheed's unaffected demeanor.
Prosecutors held up the implements of her torture:
The manacles he clamped on her legs as he and two accomplices grabbed her April 4 off South Eighth Street as she left work at National Watch & Diamond Exchange. The handcuffs that left scars that still mar her wrists. The blindfold tied so tightly around her head that a clump of her hair was still stuck in the knot.
Her husband read a letter she wrote to the judge, outlining her continuing fear of opening windows or answering her front door.
But when it came time for Shaheed to address the court, the 35-year-old self-styled businessman used his opportunity to quote extensively from the work of personal finance guru and author Brian Tracy. He asked the judge to let him out of prison while he still had time left in his "earning years."
The only mention he made of his victim, who prosecutors have not publicly named, came in reference to her husband.
"Any decent human being would have compassion for the events he has suffered," Shaheed said. "But I am not responsible for what happened to his wife."
Though he pleaded guilty just two days into his trial in October, Shaheed later tried to withdraw his plea, citing reasons ranging from a purported threat his sister received to his claim that he had a headache the day he made his false confession in court.
His family and friends had earlier described him as a faithful adherent to his church who spent time mentoring young men.
"I am not a lover of darkness," he told the judge in court Friday.
Bartle later replied: "You certainly have been the cause of darkness."
But prosecutors balked both at Shaheed's eleventh-hour attempts to assert his innocence and past testimony in which he touted his religious background.
"He's basically the antithesis of what any organized religion would stand for - a conniving, manipulative criminal," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeanine Linehan said. "He is incapable of telling the truth."
His crime, she said, was notable both for the extensive planning behind it and the brutality with which Shaheed and his accomplices treated their victim.
They put a bag over her head, bound her with zip ties and shackles, beat her, and used a Taser on her at least seven times, all while demanding that she give up the code to her jewelry store's safe.
When they eventually concluded she did not know the safe's codes, they dumped her in a cemetery in Darby Township, where she flagged down a passing motorist for help.
Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested the men days later after one of the abductors - Khayree Gay, 31 - confessed and implicated Shaheed and his cousin Basil Buie as his accomplices.
Buie was sentenced to 15 years in prison last month. Gay is set to be sentenced Feb. 29. In addition to his prison term Friday, Shaheed was ordered to pay nearly $10,000 in restitution to the victim, who prosecutors say still suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and several lingering physical injuries.
In her statement Friday, she told the judge that all she could think about during her two-hour ordeal was how she had to find a way to survive it.
Now that she has survived, she wrote, she finds herself living no kind of life at all.
"I spend my days constantly afraid," her statement read in part. "Fear is my constant companion."
As U.S. marshals prepared to lead Shaheed back to prison, Bartle addressed her concerns.
"While I cannot remove the trauma and suffering the victim has endured," he said, addressing Shaheed, "I can certainly relieve her of the worry that you will be out on the street any time soon."
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