Oct. 01--Inam Rahim told police that he didn't think his employer, The Islamic Foundation of Villa Park, paid him enough.
But as the group's finance director, Rahim was in a position to make changes by setting up a shell company and paying his wife from foundation funds -- acts that allowed Rahim to take more than $400,000 before his scheme was discovered and he was arrested.
On Thursday, DuPage County Judge John Kinsella will decide the appropriate punishment for the Naperville man, who pleaded guilty this spring to felony theft.
Rahim's two-day sentencing hearing concluded Wednesday afternoon, with the Naperville resident telling the judge that he originally planned to take just a small amount of money and repay the foundation, which operates a mosque and school.
"My pride blinded me from coming to terms with what I did," he told the judge.
Rahim, a 61-year-old father of four, said he never lived lavishly and spent most of the stolen money on others, including helping extended family in his native Pakistan.
But Assistant State's Atty. Shanti Kulkarni said Rahim betrayed the foundation, which had employed Rahim for 12 years before his 2012 arrest and paid him about $70,000 annually. The foundation, Kulkarni said, had extended a hand to help him achieve the American Dream and had been "shoddily repaid."
The prosecutors asked the judge to send Rahim to prison for 11 years.
Rahim's attorney, Stephen Richards, told the judge that a sentence of probation and restitution was appropriate. The Rahims are selling their house to pay back some of the money owed to the foundation, Richards said.
Clifford Ward is a freelance reporter.
