Oak Forest Man Leaves Threat, Phone Number On Muslim-American Lawyer's Voicemail: Prosecutors

CHICAGO, IL — An Oak Forest man is accused of leaving a threatening voicemail message in May for one of the officials at the Chicago branch of a Muslim-American advocacy group, a message that also included the caller's phone number, the Chicago Triubne reports. Marvin Meyer, 45, was charged with a felony hate crime and a misdemeanor telephone threat. He was ordered held on $75,000 bail, and if released, Meyer must wear an electronic monitoring device, the report added.

According to prosecutors, Meyer said he called the Chicago office of Sufyan Sohel, deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, on May 16, and he allegedly threatened to kill the official, as well as insulted his religion and the Democratic Party, the report stated. Through phone records, investigators determined that Meyer was the only person who had used the account, the report added.

In his message, Meyer allegedly addressed himself as "America calling," and he allegedly told Sohel he was "not welcome here" before launching into an expletive-laden death threat telling him to return to Syria, the report stated.

"We will kill you," Meyer allegedly said, according to the Tribune.

As for why Meyer left his phone number on the voicemail, prosecutors said he allegedly explained in the message: "Do I seem afraid of you?"

Sohel, who does not know Meyer, is a lawyer who was born in the United States after his parents immigrated to the country from India. He told the Tribune he was satisfied with the seriousness in which the Chicago Police Department handled his case, especially given the content of the message Meyer is accused of leaving:

“His comments were very violent in nature, and he threatened to kill people, and that raised flags and that kind of shook me because when people use that sort of language, it made me both fearful for me and my team, but I also got a sense of being unwelcome in the only country that I’ve ever called home.”

Based in Washington, D.C., the Council on American-Islamic Relations is a nonprofit group that strives "to attain equal opportunity for — and normalize the image of — Muslims in America," according to the organization's website. CAIR does not consider itself a religious group "in that we don’t issue decrees, nor interpret religious text for the people," the website said. Instead, it's described as a community services organization that focuses on civil rights, political empowerment, media monitoring and outreach.

Sohel told the Tribune that CAIR-Chicago has seen a dramatic increase this year in the reports of discrimination against Islamic-Americans the organization receives. Nearly halfway through 2017, he says the group already has received about 400 of those types of calls, a number that has been the organization's annual total in past years.

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