A new undersheriff is hired, with $190,712 in tax-lien judgments on file as of 2017

Bilal named Tariq El-Shabazz, a former criminal defense attorney, as undersheriff, replacing Curtis Douglas, who had retired weeks earlier after the Bid4Assets contract came to light. El-Shabazz had joined the office earlier in the year as a legal adviser.

As of 2017, El-Shabazz had $190,712 in federal, state, and city tax-lien judgments on file, and his former law firm had been sued six times between 2008 and 2016 over unpaid rent. In 2023, the city’s ethics board fined him $16,000 for operating a private criminal-defense practice while undersheriff; he retired in May 2026, on the day the court ordered an accounting of the office’s sheriff sales.