Posted on 11/14/2003 4:44:04 AM PST by randita
Posted on Fri, Nov. 14, 2003
BIZ'S RECORDS LIST IMAN, QA'ID STATEN
By RAMONA SMITH smithra@phillynews.com
What did the slain son of powerful union leader Sam Staten Sr. have to do with an obscure company that has been sucked into the widening federal investigation in Philadelphia?
Qa'id Staten, a promising 17-year-old shot to death in a North Philadelphia robbery attenpt in April, was one of two people who last year set up a company named Clear Alley Inc., according to records on file with the Pennsylvania Department of State.
The other incorporator: The widely known Muslim cleric Imam Shamsud-din Ali, co-owner of Keystone Information and Financial Services, headquartered at the same Germantown Avenue address listed for Clear Alley.
The FBI raided Keystone in one of the early actions in the unfolding probe.
Now Clear Alley is one of the companies from which federal investigators have been seeking records as part of their widespread corruption probe.
And what is Clear Alley?
"We didn't do anything with the corporation because we never did any business," Ali told the Daily News recently. He maintained that a company had been set up "not with Qa'id. Qa'id's brother."
When told that the name of Qa'id, a minor, was on the incorporation records, Ali responded, "I didn't know that." He could not be reached yesterday for further comment.
Qa'id Staten was an outstanding senior at Sister Clara Muhammad School in West Philadelphia, where Ali and his wife, Faridah, are directors. Qa'id was just weeks from graduation and looking forward to attending Howard University when he was shot down April 27 in a robbery attempt outside a pizza shop on Cecil B. Moore Avenue near 22nd Street.
A trial date has not been set yet for Stephen Spurrell, 20, of Brewerytown, the man charged with the slaying.
When Qa'id was struck down, Mayor Street and Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson, both friends of the Staten family, rushed to the hospital. Thousands attended the young man's funeral at Sister Clara Muhammad School.
People who remembered him or were familiar with the case said yesterday they knew nothing about a business named Clear Alley.
"Not at all," said City Councilman-elect Juan Ramos, a friend of the elder Staten. "Everyone that came in contact with him was so impressed by his smile and his good behavior, and he had his life ahead of him."
Attempts to reach Qa'id's parents for comment about Clear Alley were unsuccessful.
Clear Alley's incorporation document was signed March 11, 2002, with the names of Qa'id, at his father's house on 7th Street in East Oak Lane, and Ali, at the same Germantown Avenue address as Keystone.
Qa'id would have been just 16 at the time.
A spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of State said corporation owners must be 18. However, it's not the department's practice to check on all parties' ages.
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