The man who killed 15 people in the New Orleans terror attack had been left in financial ruin after a string of messy divorces, according to court documents.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar bypassed police blockades to mow down party-goers celebrating in the city’s Bourbon Street nightlife district in a horror vehicle ramming attack on New Year’s Day. The 42-year-old assailant, from Texas, was shot dead by police officers at the scene.
An ISIS flag was found on his rented truck. The FBI say they are treating the incident as a terrorist act and do not believe he acted alone. US President Joe Biden said the agency had found the videos the driver posted to social media hours before the “heinous” attack.
Now, court documents seen by ABC News show that Shamsud-Din Jabbar had been through three messy divorces, and was struggling with mounting debt at the time the most recent proceedings concluded in 2022. In 2012, his ex-wife Nakedra Charrllee Jabbar successfully sued him for child support payments for the couple’s two young daughters, and he married second wife Tiera Symone Jabbar in September the following year.
He then filed for divorce in Dekalb County, Georgia in February 2016, and ticked a box on a grounds for divorce form stating the marriage was “irretrievably broken”. A third marriage to Shaneen Chantil Jabbar followed in November 2017, but by July 2020 he had already filed for divorce, court papers state. This filing was dismissed by the court a month later after a request by the couple, who “no longer desire[d] to prosecute his/her respective suits against the other party”.
Jabbar then filed again for divorce a year later, prompting a counter-claim from his wife that accused him of “flagrant disregard” of his financial duties to the household. Court documents show that Jabbar had been on a salary of around $125,000 (£100,000) a year while working for Deloitte in 2022, but that his day-to-day financial situation was encumbered by child support payments for past marriages, as well as mounting credit card and mortgage debt.
After falling out with his lawyer, Jabbar represented himself for the majority of the divorce proceedings. In one email to Shaneen’s lawyer, he pleaded that the couple sell their home in a speedy resolution to the divorce because the property was in “danger of foreclosure” due to him being unable to afford payments.
But the divorce ended in Shaneen being given the house and primary custody of their son, court documents showed. Earlier in life, Jabbar served in the US Army for more than a decade and was stationed to Afghanistan from February 2009 to January 2010. His service record details extensive military experience, and he became a staff sergeant when he left the military.
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