Mark Bas­sant

Lead Ed­i­tor, In­ves­tiga­tive Desk

For­mer vice pres­i­dent of in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy at S.M Jaleel Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed Adil Mo­hammed was placed on a bond of US$25,000 af­ter he was charged with ten felony charges of sex­u­al per­for­mance by a child and child pornog­ra­phy in the Unit­ed States last month.

Mo­hammed, 47, made his first court ap­pear­ance on Au­gust 7 for the bond hear­ing be­fore Judge Daryl E Traw­ick at the Mi­a­mi-Dade Coun­ty Cour­t­house and was rep­re­sent­ed by de­fence at­tor­ney Mark Ei­glarsh. Dur­ing that hear­ing, for each charge he was giv­en a US$2,500 bond.

The charges were brought against him af­ter he was held in a sting op­er­a­tion in Mi­a­mi, fol­low­ing in­ten­sive work done by the po­lice, to­geth­er with the Cy­ber­crime In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit of the Mi­a­mi Dade Po­lice De­part­ment in­volv­ing a male mi­nor.

Un­der the 2022 Flori­da Statutes law for crimes against chil­dren Chap­ter 827.071, a per­son is guilty of the use of a child in a sex­u­al per­for­mance if, know­ing the char­ac­ter and con­tent there­of, he or she em­ploys, au­tho­rizes, or in­duces a child less than 18 years of age to en­gage in a sex­u­al per­for­mance or, be­ing a par­ent, le­gal guardian, or cus­to­di­an of such child, con­sents to the par­tic­i­pa­tion by such child in a sex­u­al per­for­mance. Who­ev­er vi­o­lates this sub­sec­tion is guilty of a felony of the sec­ond de­gree.

Es­sen­tial­ly, this in­di­cates it is a crime to use a child un­der 18 in a sex­u­al per­for­mance of any kind (in a movie, on a we­b­cam, on a web­site, etc., even if they con­sent or their par­ent con­sents).

The law al­so states fur­ther that a per­son is guilty of pro­mot­ing a sex­u­al per­for­mance by a child when, know­ing the char­ac­ter and con­tent there­of, he or she pro­duces, di­rects, or pro­motes any per­for­mance which in­cludes sex­u­al con­duct by a child less than 18 years of age. Who­ev­er vi­o­lates this sub­sec­tion is guilty of a felony of the sec­ond de­gree.

Bro­ken down in lay­man's terms, it is a crime to share pic­tures or movies or any type of sex­u­al per­for­mance of a child un­der 18. Even if the child did the act will­ing­ly, you can still be ar­rest­ed for hav­ing it or for shar­ing it.

Five days af­ter Mo­hammed's bond hear­ing (Aug12), ac­cord­ing to court doc­u­ments ob­tained by the Guardian Me­dia on Thurs­day, the mat­ter was again called and his at­tor­ney, Mark Eliglarsh, en­tered a writ­ten plea of not guilty by Mo­hammed to the court.

Fol­low­ing the fil­ing of var­i­ous doc­u­ments on Sep­tem­ber 6, Judge Traw­ick sched­uled a tri­al hear­ing for De­cem­ber 5, one day af­ter Mo­hammed cel­e­brates his 48th birth­day.

The news of Mo­hammed's cap­ture and court ap­pear­ance with his mugshots hit so­cial me­dia late Thurs­day evening, which lat­er led the com­pa­ny he once worked for to is­sue a state­ment on their Face­book page.

The com­pa­ny stat­ed: "S.M Jaleel Co. Ltd ac­cept­ed the res­ig­na­tion of its Vice Pres­i­dent of In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy, Mr. Adil Mo­hammed, on Au­gust 11, 2022. On hear­ing of the charge, the com­pa­ny en­gaged him in di­a­logue which led to him sub­mit­ting his res­ig­na­tion. Since the mat­ter is cur­rent­ly be­fore the courts in the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, and there­fore sub ju­dice, pro­pri­ety de­mands that it is in­ap­pro­pri­ate to com­ment on the case. Our com­pa­ny re­quires all em­ploy­ees and fam­i­ly mem­bers em­ployed with­in the com­pa­ny, to abide by the com­pa­ny's val­ues, moral code of con­duct, and the laws per­tain­ing to all the ju­ris­dic­tions where we op­er­ate. Mr. Adil is not a share­hold­er or di­rec­tor of the com­pa­ny."

Many peo­ple's feed­back and com­ments on the im­ages of Mo­hammed on so­cial me­dia in­ferred that the main­stream me­dia was try­ing to hide this sto­ry from the pub­lic.