A warped Queens supermarket owner brutally beat, kidnapped and sexually assaulted a series of rivals and enemies as twisted pay back for them mocking his claim that he was the “King of New York,” federal prosecutors said.
Abu Chowdhury, 36, was found guilty in Brooklyn Federal court Friday for his bizarre 2023 campaign of terror, in which he grabbed three of his doubters off the street and subjected them to tortures, such as violating them with poles, filming them naked and drugging them.
Chowdhury was hoping to “protect and promote” his standing in the community as the alleged street “king” with his attacks, which were seen as displays of dominance, prosecutors said, as reported by the Daily News.
“He wanted to protect and promote his [reputation], and to show his community he was, as he said, the ‘King of New York,’” Assistant US Attorney Joshua Tannen said, according to the outlet.
Feds said that Chowdhury’s spate of kidnappings began after an infantile TikTok fight with a 41-year-old man, who claimed an insecure Chowdhury “didn’t own the streets.”
The beef boiled over when Chowdhury and a group of accomplices grabbed the man as he was walking near 181st Street and Hillside Avenue on March 27, 2023, prosecutors said.
Federal prosecutors alleged that the group beat the 41-year-old and threatened his life during a hellish car ride. The depravity peaked when the crew forced the man to stand naked in the middle of the street for a video.
The attack only ended after the sick crew gave the victim a sedative, leaving him to wake up bruised in a local hospital, according to prosecutors.
In May of the same year, feds said Chowdhury kidnapped and attacked two more people off the street who had supposedly insulted his then-girlfriend Iffat Lubna, 27, according to feds.
After grabbing the two men and bringing them to a hotel in Long Island City, Chowdhury sexually violated one with a rod, prosecutors said.
He then coerced the other man into beating the first one, under threat that Chowdhury would beat the second man if he didn’t participate, according to federal prosecutors. Lubna allegedly participated in the attack.
Chowdhury was convicted of the three kidnappings on Thursday, with his wife Lubna having been found guilty of the latter two by a jury back in April, feds said.
Associates of Chowdhury were also found guilty, prosecutors said.
He’s been found guilty of three charges of kidnapping and three charges of conspiring to kidnap, and faces a maximum penalty of life in prison, prosecutors said.
“The acts committed by the defendant, along with his co-defendants and co-conspirators, were brutal, senseless, and cannot be tolerated in a civilized society,” United States Attorney Joseph Nocella, Jr. said in a statement on the verdict.
”Our Office is committed to investigating and prosecuting violent crime that endangers our community.”
