TROY, Mich., June 9, 2004 – LAWFUEL – Today, Attorney General Mike Cox
announced the arrest of Serageldin Ahmed Abdellatif, a 59-year-old Rochester
Hills substitute teacher for the Detroit and Rochester Public School
Districts. Abdellatif was arrested Tuesday and arraigned today in 52-4
District Court in Troy on charges that he used a computer to set up a meeting
with a minor to engage in sexual activity.
“By combining proven undercover law enforcement techniques with cutting-
edge technology, this campaign gives my office the necessary tools to
identify, investigate, prosecute and punish child predators,” Cox said. “We
have taken the privacy of the Internet and turned it into a powerful tool
aimed at deterring those who seek to exploit Michigan’s children.”
The Attorney General’s Office arrested Abdellatif Tuesday afternoon in the
parking lot of Troy’s Oakland Mall shopping center. Abdellatif is the latest
arrest in a new campaign to thwart child predators who use the Internet.
Recently, the Attorney General’s efforts have nabbed a Catholic priest from
Portland, Michigan, as well as another suspect who is a convicted sex offender
and had been paroled from a Michigan prison.
Abdellatif, an Egyptian-born United States Citizen, faces seven felony
charges: one count of child sexually abusive activity, a twenty-year felony;
one count of using a computer to communicate with another to commit child
sexually abusive activity, a twenty-year felony; and five counts of using a
computer to distribute obscene material, a four-year felony.
Abdellatif’s arrest comes just two weeks after Attorney General special
agents arrested Father Shamaun Beas, 35, a Catholic priest from Portland,
Michigan, and Ned Hilburn Fauth, 44, a convicted sex offender from New Hudson,
Michigan.
Beas was arraigned May 25 in 37 District Court in Warren on eight counts,
including child sexually abusive activity, a twenty-year felony. Beas is
being held in the Macomb County Jail in lieu of $5 million bond. A
preliminary examination is scheduled for Thursday, June 10 at 8:45 a.m.
Fauth was arraigned May 25 in 52-1 District Court in Novi on five counts,
including child sexually abusive activity. Fauth is being held in lieu of
$100,000 bond and the next court date is pending awaiting forensic
examinations.
