Mohammed Abdullah Saleem — Institute of Islamic Education, Elgin, Illinois
Founder of a residential Islamic school in Elgin, Illinois, who pleaded guilty in 2016 to two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse — in two separate cases, a former student who was a minor and an adult employee — and received probation and lifetime registration. At his plea hearing, prosecutors said the student had reported the abuse in 2002 and 'nothing happened.'
Islam Pleaded guilty
- Person
- Mohammed Abdullah Saleem
- Role
- Founder (1989) and former principal
- Institution
- Institute of Islamic Education, Elgin, Illinois — a full-time residential school for grades 6–12
- Location
- Elgin, Illinois; Cook County court (Rolling Meadows)
- Status
- Pleaded guilty (August 25, 2016)
- Sentence
- 24 months' probation; lifetime sex-offender registration; proximity and contact conditions
Case in brief
Tier 1 · Court-proven — the plea
Mohammed Abdullah Saleem founded the Institute of Islamic Education in Elgin, Illinois, in 1989 and served as its principal. On August 25, 2016, in a Cook County courtroom — ‘I plead guilty,’ in his own words to the judge, as the Chicago Tribune’s reporter at the hearing recorded — he pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. The plea resolved two separate cases: one involving a former student who was a minor (14 when the abuse began in 2001, per prosecutors), and one involving an adult female employee of the school. The counts are labeled separately in this file because the record separates them: only the first is a child case.
The institution
At the plea hearing, Assistant State’s Attorney Jaclyn Lantz stated that the student reported the abuse to a school official in 2002 — ‘but nothing happened.’ That sentence is a prosecution statement made at the hearing, reported by the Tribune; it is not an adjudicated finding against the school or the unnamed official, and this file carries it as the prosecution’s statement, nothing more. No one at the school could be reached for comment that day, as the Tribune also reported.
The record
Tier 1 · Court-proven
| Item | Record |
|---|---|
| Guilty plea | August 25, 2016 — two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, in two separate cases (former student, a minor; employee, an adult) |
| Sentence | 24 months’ probation; lifetime sex-offender registration |
| Conditions (as reported from the hearing, Chicago Tribune) | Not to be in the presence of females of any age, except relatives, without another adult female present; not within 500 feet of any school — including the one he founded — except to worship at its affiliated mosque. (CBS reporting carried a somewhat narrower condition list; the Tribune’s, from the hearing itself, governs here and the difference is noted rather than merged.) |
| Residence order | January 2017 — the court clarified that he could remain at his residence at the mosque’s rectory beside the campus while barred from the school itself (WTTW, from the hearing transcript) |
Status
No prison term was imposed. His sentence was probation plus lifetime registration. His present registration and residence status were not re-verified against the Illinois registry in this build; the most recent reporting located (WTTW, October 2024) has him living beside the school under the 2017 court order, and this file says no more than that.
Attributed allegations — not court findings
Tier 2 · Attributed allegations
The details of the abuse as prosecutors described it at the hearing — its course from 2001 to 2003 for the student, and from late 2013 for the employee — are the prosecution’s account, presented at a plea hearing. The plea establishes the counts; the narrative detail is the State’s, and is attributed to it.
Records requested & responses
This archive has not filed records requests in this case. The file rests on the published sources below and will be updated if court or institutional records are obtained, or if that changes.
Sources
- Chicago Tribune / Courier-News (August 25, 2016), ‘Elgin Muslim Leader Admits Sex Abuse of Minor and Woman, Gets Probation’ — reporter present at the hearing; plea, counts, sentence, conditions, and the prosecutor’s 2002 statement, archived at BishopAccountability.org: bishop-accountability.org
- CBS / Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office via American Bazaar (August 31, 2016) — two counts; the school’s founding and residential character: americanbazaaronline.com
- WTTW News (October 2024) — the two-case structure from court records; the January 2017 residence order from the hearing transcript; residence status as of 2024: zdask.com mirror of the WTTW investigation
Filed October 25, 2026, from the published sources below. Minor victims are never named or identified in this file.