FORT BEND COUNTY, Texas – As KPRC 2 continues digging deeper into the rabbit hole that is a social media hoax in Fort Bend County, a recently filed petition reveals more people may be involved.
KPRC 2 Investigates first brought the story of Precinct 3 Commissioner Taral Patel, who at 30 years old, was an up-and-coming political star until an investigation revealed he created an online persona to make racially-charged attacks on his opponents and himself.
Before this, Patel served as Fort Bend County Judge KP George’s chief of staff, and further investigation showed the county judge might have been an accessory to the social media hoax and was booked in the county jail as a result. The judge has since been out on bond and has declined to further comment on the investigation.
SUGGESTED: The Daily Show writer from Houston talks comedy, importance of laughter in politically tense times
According to a petition filed by Muhammad Javed, there may be more people linked to the hoax than once thought. The court document describes Javed as a Pakistani American philanthropist in Houston and names another man Tanweer Ahmed, another Pakistani American businessman, and is “in large part, Javed’s rival in both U.S. and Pakistani politics.”
The petition goes on to suggest Javed and Ahmed had such a “strained” working relationship that when the former’s son Abrahim Javed launched his campaign in 2023 for Fort Bend Commissioner Pct. 3, Ahmed and Taral Patel “had a common enemy: the Javed family.”
In other words, the court document claims Ahmed was part of the “hatched scheme” to put money toward defamatory articles shared by various Facebook aliases like “Antonio Scalywag” that would in turn be used to “smear the Javeds.”
“Tanweer Ahmed would then interact and comment on Patel’s fake profile or re-post the same slanderous, fake articles to spread it to Ahmed’s large social media following. In exchange, Tanweer Ahmed paid $5,000 ‘campaign contribution’ to Patel.”
KPRC 2 has reached out to Ahmed for comment but has not heard back, as of this writing.