Malcolm X's Daughter Charged with Identity Theft

Uh-oh.

One of Malcolm X’s daughters is being held in North Carolina on an arrest warrant from Queens, stemming from an accusation that she stole from the widow of one of her father’s bodyguards, the authorities said Monday. The daughter, Malikah Shabazz, was arrested Friday night in Mars Hill, N.C., and faces an extradition hearing [to New York] on Tuesday. Sheriff’s deputies in North Carolina were investigating a call that a child at her home was not attending school, Ms. Shabazz’s lawyer, Sean Devereux, told The Associated Press. Mr. Devereux said that Ms. Shabazz’s daughter was being home-schooled, The A.P. reported. But when deputies discovered Ms. Shabazz’s warrant, which was from 2009, they arrested her. The warrant included charges of grand larceny and identity theft. A law enforcement official said Ms. Shabazz was accused of stealing the identity of [Khaula Bakr], the widow of one of Malcolm X’s bodyguards, and taking about $30,000 to pay bills and other personal expenses.

Malikah, 45, is currently embroiled in a bitter family feud with her five sisters over the $1.4 million estate and the potentially lucrative unpublished writings of their father and his widow, Betty Shabazz, who died in 1997 in a fire set by one of her grandsons. Malikah has accused her sisters Ilyasah and Malaak Shabazz -- who were appointed by the Westchester County Surrogate's Court to administer the estate -- of theft and other wrongdoing. The sisters say Malikah took her father's writings and other belongings to Florida without permission and locked them in a storage trailer, but failed to pay the rent. The items wound up in a California auction house, and the estate had to fork over $300,000 to get them back.


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