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Embraced Islam at Taco Bell job©Los Angeles TimesJune 12, 2002 FORT LAUDERDALE -- It was not in his jail cell, but while working at a Taco Bell with his girlfriend that suspected Islamic terrorist Jose Padilla embraced his new faith, his former manager said Tuesday. "Both Jose and Cherie were interested in Islam," remembered Mohammed Javed, 49, a Pakistani immigrant who managed the fast-food Mexican restaurant in Davie, near Fort Lauderdale. "As employer, I couldn't go into religion. I told him: 'Check the Yellow Pages, and you'll find where to go. Any mosque, any imam will help you.' " Javed recalled a hard-working young man, but one he said might have been particularly vulnerable to manipulation. "He was very poor," Javed said. "The way to get recruits is to lure them with money. "He fell into the wrong hands." In 1992, Padilla and the woman he married, Cherie Maria Stultz, were hired at Javed's restaurant. Padilla worked there two years, then disappeared. Padilla and his wife later divorced.
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