College official convicted in Muslim school scam

A former head of adult education at Community College of Philadelphia was convicted yesterday by a federal jury of conspiracy and fraud in a $250,000 ghost-teacher scam in which the college funded nonexistent adult literacy classes at a West Philadelphia Muslim school.

The U.S. District Court jury deliberated for six hours Thursday and yesterday morning before returning guilty verdicts on 23 of 26 counts against Delores Weaver.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank A. Labor III said Weaver, 65, remained free on unsecured bond pending sentencing July 24 by U.S. District Judge John P. Fullam.

Labor said Weaver faces a possible 47 to 57 months in prison under federal sentencing guidelines.

Defense attorney Thomas A. Bergstrom said he would file motions challenging the verdict.

Weaver was one of six people indicted in June 2004 in the first criminal case to result from the wiretaps on the phone of Muslim cleric Shamsud-din Ali. Those wiretaps also led to the federal public corruption probe that came to light with the October 2003 discovery of an FBI listening device in Mayor John F. Street's City Hall office.

Charged with Weaver were Ali's wife, Faridah Ali, 59, the founder of the Sister Clara Muhammad School in West Philadelphia.

The school and Ali's mosque, which shared a building, were known as a force for social change in West Philadelphia.

But from about 1999 to 2001, federal prosecutors said, Faridah Ali and Weaver skimmed for personal use public funds for adult education by having the college pay for adult classes at the Muslim school that were never taught.

Weaver's case was severed from her five co-defendants' shortly after indictment after Bergstrom got one wiretap tape excluded and prosecutors appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Charges were also dismissed against one other defendant.

Ali, her daughter and son, and Weaver's son, Eugene D. Weaver 3d - prosecutors said the three children were paid to teach the nonexistent classes - were all convicted at trial October 2004.

Fullam sentenced Weaver and Ali's son, Azheem Spicer, to probation. Ali and her daughter, Lakiha Spicer, were sentenced to periods of house arrest and probation.

Prosecutors appealed the sentences, and in December the Third Circuit ordered Ali and her daughter to be resentenced. The court ruled that Fullam improperly interpreted federal sentencing guidelines in imposing house arrest sentences.

On April 1, Fullam resentenced the pair: Ali to prison for up to a year and Spicer to six months in prison.

Shamsud-din Ali, 68, was convicted in a separate federal racketeering trial and is at the federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas, serving a seven-year term with a tentative December 2013 release date.