Metro

Founder of ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ allegedly used $167K in project funds for ‘personal’ gain: suit

The founder of the controversial “Ground Zero Mosque” allegedly enriched himself with $167,000 in funds meant for an educational project in 2006 to 2008, according to a new bombshell lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.

Robert Leslie Deak, a major backer of Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf’s nonprofit, the Cordoba Initiative, says he discovered that the religious leader had allegedly used the funds for “his personal use” including “a luxury sports car, personal real estate, entertainment, lavish trips, and vacation” with an unidentified woman named Evelyn Adorno, the court papers, filed late yesterday, claim

Deak, of Scarsdale and the Deak Family Foundation, is suing Rauf for $20 million. The funds were earmarked for a The Shariah Index project, a group within Feisel’s nonprofit that worked to combat anti-Islamic sentiment, the court papers state.

The lawsuit also alleges that a $3 million donation from the Malaysian government to Cordoba were “utilized by Rauf for his personal use.”

Deak further charges that the Imam “falsified” the nonprofit’s “tax returns for 2008, 2009 and 2010 by failing to report receipt of funds from foreign sources and transfers of funds.”

Rauf’s attorney, Paul Knight, told the Post he “denies the allegations that are raised” in the lawsuit. He added, “He’s going to vigorously defend them it and show that it has no basis.”

Rauf was ousted as imam of the community center and mosque in Jan. 2011.