A John Jay High School graduate who became an internet mogul from his parents' Hopewell Junction home was found dismembered in his luxury Manhattan condo, police said Wednesday.
Fahim Saleh, 33, was found 3:30 p.m. Tuesday inside his apartment on East Houston Street on the Lower East Side. An electric saw was left behind, police said Wednesday.
A relative called police after going to check on Saleh and making the gruesome discovery. Responding officers discovered a clothed torso, bags containing a head and arms and the electric saw in the living room, police said.
Investigators also recovered security video showing Saleh exiting an elevator earlier Tuesday afternoon closely followed by someone dressed entirely in black, according to a law enforcement official who was briefed on the case. It also shows a struggle between the two ensuing at the entrance to the apartment, said the official, who wasn’t authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Saleh was the chief executive officer of a ride-hailing motorcycle startup called Gokada that began operating in Nigeria in 2018. The company confirmed his death on Twitter Wednesday and said, “Fahim was a great leader, inspiration and positive light for all of us.”
Saleh lists Poughkeepsie as his hometown on his Facebook page, but according to Journal archives he lived in Hopewell Junction and graduated from John Jay in 2005.
He was born in Saudi Arabia and "moved quite a bit before settling in Rochester," according to his bio on the Gokada site. His "interest in computers developed" as an eighth-grader in Poughkeepsie, the site said.
In 2003, while still living with his parents, he created WizTeen, a network of around a dozen websites targeted at teens and tweens that allowed for customizing social media and instant messenger services. It was, by the time he was 20, a six-figure business, according to archives.
Investigators were exploring whether the killing could have been related to Saleh’s business dealings. They also were checking security camera video from around the neighborhood to try to learn where the assailant fled.
Apartments in the 10-story building where Saleh’s remains were found sell for more than $2 million. The building was completed in 2017 as part of a wave of gentrification in the once gritty neighborhood.
WMCHealth to Resume Outpatient Ambulatory Surgeries at HealthAlliance and MidHudson Regional Hospitals this Week
Today, WMCHealth announces that elective outpatient ambulatory surgeries and medical tests will resume this week at its hospitals in Dutchess and Ulster counties, under an Executive Order from Governor Andrew Cuomo. HealthAlliance (Broadway campus) in Kingston, and MidHudson Regional Hospital, in Poughkeepsie, will each resume outpatient surgery services, with MidHudson Regional Hospital beginning Wednesday, May 6, and HealthAlliance on Thursday, May 7.
Governor Cuomo’s Executive Order allows for the resumption of elective outpatient ambulatory surgical services -- those for which the patient enters and leaves a surgical facility on the same day, without an overnight stay -- based on the status of coronavirus impact, including a drop in COVID-19 cases in specific counties.
Individuals who were able to defer an elective outpatient procedure or test during the early phase of the pandemic will be contacted to reschedule pre-procedure testing as well as their surgery.
As a mandatory safety protocol, the hospital will provide each patient with a COVID-19 test prior to a procedure. Each patient must then follow stringent safety precautions to avoid possible infection before the procedure date itself. Any patient who tests positive for a COVID infection will be re-tested before elective surgery can be rescheduled. Emergency and urgent surgeries have continued without deferral throughout the pandemic, regardless of a patient’s infection status.
While each patient previously scheduled for an outpatient procedure will be called to reschedule, individuals can feel free to initiate re-scheduling by contacting their surgeon’s office. Affiliated physicians are welcome to call WMCHealth surgery practices to discuss a patient who will be rescheduled for a procedure, or to make a new referral.
Any individual with new or concerning symptoms or a change in health status should not wait for care and should call their primary physician’s office or come to an emergency room. The health and well-being of our community, our patients and our workforce is our number one priority. We have taken extraordinary measures to protect our workforce and to ensure that all our care environments are safe for our patients.
