Muslim polygamist in California to stand trial for abusing wives and children
MURRIETA – A man starved the 19 children under his roof, beat some of them and their mothers and made the youngsters and two of his three so-called wives virtual prisoners in their own home, a prosecutor told jurors Monday as the defendant's long-delayed trial got under way.People should be on the alert for if something like could happen near where they live, even if it's an all but isolated location. And that monster - and the wife who assisted him in abusing the other two plus their kids, should rot in hell. The two wives should consider abandoning Islam altogether if they're to really find freedom.
Mansa Musa Muhummed, who was arrested in 1999, faces eight counts of torture – each of which carries a potential life sentence – 11 counts of willful injury to a child, five counts of inflicting corporal injury on a spouse and two counts of false imprisonment.
Marva Boddie, the woman who was legally married to Muhummed under state law – the other two were not – was arrested along with him nine years ago and pleaded guilty in 2000 to one count of willful injury to a child.
[...]
Muhummed allegedly kept two of his three so-called wives and 19 children – his and theirs – prisoner in their home, torturing seven of them, prosecutor Julie Baldwin told jurors in her opening statement.
“He would beat their feet ... to the point where they could hardly stand or walk,” she said.
When authorities went into the home in the 49000 block of Sweepstakes Lane on April 6, 1999 – they were alerted by someone who managed to escape and go for help – some of the children were underweight, undernourished and stunted because of lack of food, the prosecutor said.
[...]
One of Muhummed's so-called wives, Laura Cowan, testified that in 1995, Muhummed and his 13 children and Boddie moved into the San Bernardino condominium where she lived with her infant daughter and toddler son. Her husband had just recently gone to prison.
She tried, but failed to keep her family's restaurant and bookstore businesses going, and everyone moved to a house in Perris, Cowan said.
“In the beginning, it was still good,” she said.
But soon, she said, she saw a different side of the defendant.
“His temperament, the way he treated the children, his demeanor started to change,” Cowan testified.
Boddie, the defendant's legal wife, was already on welfare and Cowan said she had to go on public assistance, as well. The defendant did not work or contribute to the combined family's finances, she said.
He convinced Cowan that they could wed, under Islamic law, because her own husband was away, she said. The moment she married the defendant, he forced her to close all her bank accounts and credit cards and assumed control of her finances and her life, she testified.
“He said I no longer had outside affairs,” Cowan said. “I was told that nothing else I would do alone.”
The defendant also forbade Cowan to work outside the home or go to school, she said, and refused her money for the children's clothing, personal items such as toothbrushes and hair products. He bought everything for the household himself, ruling the home with an iron hand, Cowan said.
[...]
“I wanted to take my children and move,” said Cowan, who said she was Muslim when she became involved with the defendant but had never heard of some of the rules he imposed on her, in the name of Islam and Sharia. Cowan said she became an object of his physical abuse.
Labels: california, islam, misogyny, sexual violence, United States