Former CEO at Philly music icon Kenny Gamble’s nonprofit convicted of embezzlement, bribery

Jeremy Roebuck, The Philadelphia Inquirer

A former executive at the community development nonprofit founded by Philadelphia music legend Kenny Gamble was convicted Wednesday of fleecing the organization out of more than a half-million dollars and then bribing an elected official in Milwaukee as part of a scheme to cover the cash crunch brought on by his theft.

A federal jury took roughly 10 hours to conclude that Rahim Islam, the former CEO of Universal Companies, looted the nonprofit by awarding himself five-figure bonuses without the approval of its board and embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars more through reimbursements for personal expenses like $16,000 in gym membership fees and vacations with girlfriends to Orlando, Jamaica, and the Bahamas.

In all, prosecutors said, he, with assistance from Universal’s former CFO Shahied Dawan, drained roughly $571,000 from Universal’s coffers between 2011 and 2018 — all while the nonprofit struggled to come up with cash to support its core missions of providing affordable housing in blighted Philadelphia neighborhoods and educating children through the charter schools it operated across the city.

“You can’t be Big Willy on somebody else’s dime. You can’t live a high life with somebody else’s money,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Linwood C. Wright Jr. said during closing arguments Monday. “That money was meant to support schools; instead, it became a piggy bank, and [they] took full advantage of it.”

Islam, 66, now faces up to 20 years in prison on the most serious counts of conspiracy, wire fraud and honest services fraud for which he was convicted Wednesday.

The jury also convicted Dawan, 72, of one count of conspiring to cover up Islam’s thefts as well as $80,000 in unapproved bonuses he personally took home — a charge that could send him to prison for up to five years. But it acquitted the former accountant on 11 other charges, including all those connected to the political bribery scheme.

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