Concerns were raised to mosque years before youth volunteer was arrested, accused of molesting boys

When Ghoneim stepped off his flight from Egypt to Chicago on Aug. 5, 2021, officers were waiting for him at the end of the jet bridge. 

Cook County Sheriff’s Police Department body camera video shows officers removed Ghoneim’s backpack and told him to put his hands behind his back.  

“What’s going on?” Ghoneim asked in the recording. 

“You’re under arrest,” an officer told him.

Up until a few months before officers walked Ghoneim through Chicago O’Hare International Airport in handcuffs, he was a volunteer with the youth program at the Islamic Society of the Tampa Bay Area, also known as ISTABA. 

In a video recorded by former ISTABA member Wade Abawi, Ghoneim can be seen sitting with mosque leadership as they all introduce themselves to a visiting political candidate. 

“These are my community leaders, actually,” a mosque elder tells the candidate. 

“My name is Ehab: Business owner and also youth program director volunteer here in the mosque,” said Ghoneim in the video. 

“These are key people,” said the elder after Ghoneim introduced himself. 

In early 2021, boys told police Ghoneim sexually abused them during sleepovers at his house in Pinellas Park and during overnight trips out of town for events like Islamic youth conferences.  

Police records show those boys reported Ghoneim would give them pills, get into bed with them, and touch them inappropriately while he thought they were asleep. 

One of the boys agreed to let Pinellas Park Police record a phone call between him and Ghoneim on March 26, 2021. 

“But when I’d sleep, I’d wake up, right? And then, you know, my private area, you know, like my penis – it would be, like, out of my boxers and it would be wet. You know what I mean? And I was sleeping, I mean, like, I wouldn’t, you know, I wouldn’t, I was, like, what the heck is going on? And, like, you would be next to me. So, that’s why – I would feel very wet. And it happened, like, multiple times. But, and in the morning, I would wake up and I would be like, what the heck is going on? I would always think twice, like, what the heck happened?” the teen boy told Ghoneim during the recorded call. 

Ghoneim can be heard laughing throughout. 

“It’s just that – I was sleeping, you know what I’m saying –" said the teen. 

“Come on, man. Come on, man,” Ghoneim said while laughing during the call recorded by police.

A few minutes later in the recording, Ghoneim told the teen, “I would never harm you. I would never harm anybody. And I – what’s it called – if you, in your heart, if you believe it, that’s you, OK?” 

“I mean, it’s – I believe it. I mean, I just, I know it happened because it happened multiple times. And, as I said, since I got older, older, older, then I started getting more confident and more confident. You know what I mean?” the teen replied during the recorded call. 

Source: Pinellas Park Police; March 26, 2021

After 11 years, Nour Elsayed says he’s done staying silent. 

“Ehab Ghoneim is my uncle,” said Elsayed. “He was the fun uncle. I think it was the first time I ever had $50 cash in my hand. He’d give us all cash. We’d go to Treasure Island, have an insane amount of fun, sleep together at night. Like, he was my best friend. And I remember, when he’d leave, I would cry.” 

Elsayed said when he was 14, Ghoneim abruptly left his job in New Jersey and moved in with his family in St. Petersburg. 

“He goes, I’m coming to live with you guys. I want to be around the family and my brother. It was just very abrupt, and it just felt forced,” said Elsayed.

He said Ghoneim would sleep on the floor of his bedroom. 

“He would give me these ‘sleeping pills’ and I would have crazy dreams,” said Elsayed. “I specifically remember him sneaking into my bed and jerking me off. And in the morning – I’m 14. He stole my purity, pretty much.” 

Elsayed said he does not know any of the other boys who have come forward.

“It’s the exact same story… The moment I heard what happened, I think selfishly right away, I felt a form of relief because you almost feel like you’re vindicated. Oh, I told you this happened…But then the reality sets in that there’s young men struggling,” said Elsayed. “He sells this holy character like you’ve never seen before…He sells it. He ****ing sells it.” 

This is an extended cut of 10 Tampa Bay investigative reporter Jenna Bourne’s exclusive interview with Nour Elsayed.

Elsayed’s accusations are in police records, but Ghoneim has not been charged with molesting him. 

Ghoneim’s arrest was connected to three criminal charges of unlawful sexual activity with a minor and one molestation charge.

There’s a reason those are the only charges: Pinellas Park Police Public Information Officer Sgt. John Shea said his agency can only recommend charges for the accusations during sleepovers at his home in Pinellas Park. Accusations of abuse in any other location are outside of their jurisdiction. 

Shea said other agencies are investigating. 

10 Investigates showed up at Ghoneim’s pretrial hearing on April 18 to try to get his side of the story. We asked him questions about the accusations as he walked from the courtroom to his car. He did not respond. 

We came back for his pretrial hearing on May 17 to give him another opportunity to share his side.  

After seeing us in the courtroom, he bolted into a bathroom on the way out. He changed out of his suit and into different clothes, a different mask, sunglasses, and a hat. 

We, again, asked him questions about the accusations in the parking lot. He got into his car and drove off without responding. 

Ghoneim has been out on bond since October 2021.  

“I don’t want him to have freedom. He doesn’t deserve it,” said Elsayed. 

Elsayed told 10 Investigates he wants to testify against his uncle. 

Ghoneim’s criminal trial is scheduled for late August. 

So, what did leadership at the Islamic Society of the Tampa Bay Area know and when did they know it? 

In August 2021, after Ghoneim’s arrest, ISTABA administrator Mohamed Aqqad – also known at the mosque as Abu Omar – talked to 10 Tampa Bay. 

“We had absolutely no indications that he had something else going on. But once we even got alerted that something might have happened, we took the measures needed to protect the kids, to protect the community,” said Aqqad on Aug. 18, 2021. 

But 2021 was not the first time that Aqqad heard reports accusing Ghoneim of inappropriate contact with kids.  

“That blows my ****ing mind. That blows my mind,” said Elsayed. 

In a Pinellas Park Police interview recorded on Nov. 12, 2021 – four months after Ghoneim’s arrest – Aqqad said a former ISTABA employee came to him in 2017. 

“They said, you know, he’s been accused of having improper contacts with kids in New Jersey,” Aqqad said in the recording. 

Aqqad told police during that same recorded interview that he investigated the New Jersey accusations himself, reaching out to people in the Muslim community who knew Ghoneim. 

“So, I spoke with the young boy and he said, listen, my friend told me that he has a cousin – that his cousin’s friend was in the shower and Ehab walked in, in the shower with him,” Aqqad said in the recording. 

A source at ISTABA gave 10 Investigates copies of seven letters of recommendation dated in 2017 from people who say they knew Ghoneim when he worked with youth in New Jersey, mostly at the Islamic Society of Monmouth County. 

“They said Ehab was very instrumental in keeping the kids off drugs, off the streets, all of that,” Aqqad said in the Pinellas Park Police recording. “His background check came clean.” 

What Aqqad didn’t tell police during that interview is that the same former employee who came to him in 2017 came to him again in 2020. 

A source at the mosque sent 10 Investigates emails dated in 2020 which point to more reports of accusations in New Jersey. 

Both the Monmouth County Sheriff’s Office and Islamic Society of Monmouth County tell 10 Investigates no one has reported that Ghoneim molested them. 

Aqqad told police he didn’t trust the former employee who repeatedly raised the concerns and, since he wasn’t able to prove the accusations were true, the mosque allowed Ghoneim to keep volunteering with the youth program. 

“But, since then, we restricted Ehab’s movement, even though we had no proof,” Aqqad said in the November 2021 Pinellas Park Police recording. “We’ve never had sleepover activities.” 

Although Aqqad told police the mosque never authorized Ghoneim to do overnight trips or sleepovers, he also told them during the same recorded interview that he and the two religious leaders at ISTABA, the imams, knew it was happening. 

“Both imams sent their kids with Ehab on trips,” Aqqad said during the recorded police interview. “Me, myself, I sent my kid with him. He went with my son all the way to Miami.”  

In that recording, Aqqad also told police that a group of adults came to him in February or March 2021 with accusations from several boys associated with the mosque, but he waited another two weeks before cutting ties with Ghoneim. 

“Two weeks pass by and [a mosque member] gets you on the phone with me, with a couple of other administrators and once I corroborate that there is an ongoing investigation, at that point, you tell Ehab he is no longer welcome as long as the investigation was active,” Pinellas Park Police Det. Dallas Petrovich said to Aqqad during the recorded interview. 

“Absolutely,” Aqqad responded. 

While 10 Investigates was outside of ISTABA recording video for this story, Aqqad walked up to us. 

“If there were accusations back in 2017, even if you looked into them and couldn’t find evidence—" said 10 Investigates reporter Jenna Bourne. 

“Right,” said Aqqad. 

“—Don’t you think that there was some kind of responsibility to keep this man away from children, just in case?” asked Jenna. 

“The accusation was made by somebody who this man was supposed to replace, so he had a motive,” said Aqqad. “There’s no story. If you want a story, we’ll sit down, and we’ll talk about it.” 

Aqqad agreed to a sit-down interview with 10 Investigates a few weeks later, but he backed out after we showed up. 

ISTABA, its two imams, and Ghoneim are all named in a civil lawsuit brought by one of the boys. They have all filed responses denying wrongdoing. 

RELATED: Lawsuit claims Tampa Bay area mosque covered up youth leader's sexual abuse of young boys