The recently slain American al-Qaida cleric at the center of dozens of terror plots, including the 9/11 attacks, led a seedy double life that included a penchant for hookers and underage girls, a blockbuster new book reveals.
In the 1990s, Anwar Awlaki, then an imam at a small San Diego mosque, was picked up twice by San Diego police for soliciting prostitutes. He served no jail time.
The Muslim holy man was also cited for loitering around playgrounds and schools. Local detectives believe he may have been a pedophile on the prowl.
U.S.-born Awlaki, 40, was killed last week in a CIA drone strike in Yemen, following his designation last year as a top al-Qaida terrorist.
Within months of being named prayer leader of Masjid al-Rabat just outside San Diego in 1996, Awlaki was arrested for soliciting a prostitute in a nearby redlight district. He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was fined $400, after enrolling in an AIDS awareness program.
But the cleric was unfazed by the embarrassing bust.
The next year, he was arrested again for vice. This time, Awlaki was sentenced to three years probation and fined $240. He was also ordered to perform 12 days of community service.
Then in 2002, after taking over a large mosque in the Washington suburbs, Awlaki was caught on tape at a Virginia ATM with a young prostitute he'd picked up in the district and driven across the Potomac. The woman was a minor, and federal authorities considered busting Awlaki under the Mann Act, an obscure federal law originally passed in 1910 to stop johns and pimps from trafficking underage girls across state lines.
But the case was never prosecuted – one of many investigations against the Saudi Embassy-connected terrorist to mysteriously lose traction.
Awlaki at the time lived in Falls Church, Va., with his wife and children.
In his sermons at the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, and in his widely circulated taped lectures, he railed against sins of the flesh, and spoke openly about his disgust for fornication on Earth.
He was held up in the Muslim community as a paragon of traditional Islamic virtues.
"While employed at Dar Al-Hijrah, he was known for his interfaith outreach, civic engagement and tolerance in the Northern Virginia community," said Dar al-Hijrah spokesman Johari Abdul-Malik.
But investigators and terror experts say he was a hypocrite.
"In both cities, he held important leadership positions at the mosque. He had a young wife and a family," said Fox News national security correspondent Catherine Herridge, author of "The Next Wave: On the Hunt for Al-Qaeda's American Recruits." "Yet, in his off time, in Virginia and in San Diego, Awlaki let off steam in inappropriate ways."
His seedy side could tarnish his martyr status and give his many slavish followers pause. At least one former member of his San Diego flock says he's offended by news of Awlaki's indiscretions.
"You have this guy who's actively sitting there telling people, you know, this is how you should conduct your affairs," said a Muslim convert to Islam identified by Herridge as having known Awlaki at the al-Rabat mosque. "If that's the case, he should also say that, you know, while you're going down El Cajon Boulevard (in the redlight distict, not far from Awlaki's old mosque), on this side of he street they have the more expensive prostitutes, and this side they have the cheaper ones."
Awlaki privately counseled the 9/11 hijackers and later, the Fort Hood terrorist. Before carrying out their attacks, interestingly, they patronized topless bars.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=352561
They mention him soliciiting prostitutes with four to five footnotes supposedly citing the "proof"...however, if you actually go to those citations, those articles mention nothing about him soliciting prositutes... 
.... yet according to wikipedia (wow just wow), he was considered an islamic terrorist violent propagating threat since 1997...hmmmmmm 
