A woman who worked on a 2018 New York State Senate campaign managed by Zohran Mamdani was later arrested and convicted in connection with a social-media threat targeting a Brooklyn high school attended by Jewish students.

Iman Abdul was paid to canvass for journalist Ross Barkan’s unsuccessful Democratic State Senate campaign while Mamdani was helping run the operation, according to campaign-finance records highlighted by the Washington Free Beacon.

The records show Team Barkan paid Abdul $540 for canvassing work between July and August 2018. Mamdani began the campaign as field director and later became campaign manager.

Barkan himself has confirmed Mamdani’s central role in the operation.

During a January 2026 interview with Current Affairs, Barkan recalled hiring Mamdani after becoming impressed by his previous political organizing. Mamdani initially handled field operations before being promoted to campaign manager.

“I hired him to be my field director,” Barkan said while discussing the campaign and Mamdani’s subsequent rise in New York politics.

Seven years after the Barkan race ended, Abdul became the subject of a criminal investigation in Brooklyn.

The New York Police Department arrested Abdul, then 27, on Aug. 8, 2025, after authorities said she made a threatening Instagram post involving Leon M. Goldstein High School for the Sciences in Manhattan Beach.

ADVERTISEMENT