June 9, 2004

            TROY, MI – Today, Attorney General Mike Cox announced the arrest of Serageldin Ahmed Abdellatif, a 59-year-old Rochester Hills substitute teacher for the Detroit and Rochester Public School Districts. Abdellatif was arrested Tuesday and arraigned today in 52-4 District Court in Troy on charges that he used a computer to set up a meeting with a minor to engage in sexual activity.

            "By combining proven undercover law enforcement techniques with cutting-edge technology, this campaign gives my office the necessary tools to identify, investigate, prosecute and punish child predators," Cox said. "We have taken the privacy of the Internet and turned it into a powerful tool aimed at deterring those who seek to exploit Michigan’s children."

            The Attorney General’s Office arrested Abdellatif Tuesday afternoon in the parking lot of Troy’s Oakland Mall shopping center. Abdellatif is the latest arrest in a new campaign to thwart child predators who use the Internet. Recently, the Attorney General’s efforts have nabbed a Catholic priest from Portland, Michigan, as well as another suspect who is a convicted sex offender and had been paroled from a Michigan prison.

            Abdellatif, an Egyptian-born United States Citizen, faces seven felony charges: one count of child sexually abusive activity, a twenty-year felony; one count of using a computer to communicate with another to commit child sexually abusive activity, a twenty-year felony; and five counts of using a computer to distribute obscene material, a four-year felony.

            Abdellatif’s arrest comes just two weeks after Attorney General special agents arrested Father Shamaun Beas, 35, a Catholic priest from Portland, Michigan and Ned Hilburn Fauth, 44, a convicted sex offender from New Hudson, Michigan.

            Beas was arraigned May 25 in 37 District Court in Warren on eight counts, including child sexually abusive activity, a twenty-year felony. Beas is being held in the Macomb County Jail in lieu of $5 million bond. A preliminary examination is scheduled for Thursday, June 10 at 8:45 a.m.

            Fauth was arraigned May 25 in 52-1 District Court in Novi on five counts, including child sexually abusive activity. Fauth is being held in lieu of $100,000 bond and the next court date is pending awaiting forensic examinations.

For further information contact: Stu Sandler
517-373-8060 (Office)
State of Michigan, Department of Attorney General