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.
According to the NYPD, the post amounted to a “terroristic threat” directed toward the school. Abdul was initially charged with making a terroristic threat, aggravated harassment, making a threat of mass harm and acting in a manner injurious to a child.
The post included a Google Maps image identifying the school’s location and language appearing to encourage an attack while singling out students she described as Zionists.
“If anyone needs a public school in NYC to attack for whatever reason,” Abdul wrote before referring disparagingly to “Israel-loving Zionists” she claimed attended the school.
Leon M. Goldstein High School is a public school located on the Kingsborough Community College campus in Brooklyn.
The post quickly generated concern because it identified a specific school and appeared to target students on the basis of their perceived support for Israel. Police arrested Abdul the following day.
Abdul later pleaded guilty to aggravated harassment as a hate crime, according to subsequent reporting cited by the Free Beacon.
The disposition allowed her to avoid incarceration. Under the reported agreement, completion of counseling could eventually result in the conviction being reduced to a misdemeanor.
The newly highlighted connection to Mamdani involves Abdul’s much earlier role in the Barkan campaign.
The Free Beacon reported that staffing decisions on that campaign were handled by Mamdani and cited political writer Michael Lange as saying Mamdani “assembled Barkan’s field program from the ground up.” The available campaign-finance records confirm Abdul was a paid member of that field operation.
Barkan ran in 2018 for New York’s 22nd State Senate District, challenging Andrew Gounardes for the Democratic nomination. Gounardes won the primary and later defeated longtime Republican Sen. Marty Golden in the general election.
For Mamdani, the campaign was an early step in a political career that would eventually take him from grassroots organizing to the New York State Assembly and later City Hall.
Barkan has described Mamdani as largely unknown when he hired him but already an experienced political organizer. In later interviews, he credited Mamdani with helping build the campaign’s field operation and volunteer infrastructure.
