Tipster's clue led to arrest in acid attack on Elmont college student

A tipster provided the long-sought break for Nassau investigators trying to determine who committed the 2021 acid attack on Elmont college student Nafiah Ikram, authorities said Tuesday as they identified a suspected attacker.

Nassau District Attorney Anne Donnelly, speaking at a news conference in Mineola, said the break in the case came "late last year" and "jump-started our investigation and led to this arrest." She said the tip was about the suspect's   identity and it was traced to a car authorities said he had been driving.

The March 17, 2021, attack, which was captured on surveillance video, garnered headlines and left Ikram, a student at Hofstra University, permanently disfigured and suffering from vision loss after being splashed in the face with acid.

Terrell Campbell, 29, of Brooklyn, pleaded not guilty to first-degree assault and other charges Tuesday. He was ordered held without bail.

Authorities offered no motive for the acid attack, which is rarely carried out in the United States, and said Ikram and Campbell didn't know each other.

Campbell’s arrest came just as the clock was about to expire on the five-year statute of limitations, which would have prevented prosecutors from charging anyone in the case, Donnelly acknowledged.

Asked whether anyone else might be arrested in connection with the attack, Donnelly said: "The investigation is ongoing and it’s certainly possible."

Also revealed for the first time Tuesday, the Nassau County Police Department had questioned Ikram’s father, Sheik Ikram, as a potential suspect in the attack, according to a 2025 letter from attorney Frederick K. Brewington.

The Oct. 20 letter to Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said Sheik Ikram "was held, interrogated and given a lie-detector test in connection with his daughter's assault on Feb. 21, 2024."

Brewington wrote that Sheik Ikram, who has diabetes, was denied "nutritional sustenance" during an eight-hour interrogation.

"He was told he was lying as interrogators posited false scenarios as to why he was behind the attack against his own daughter. For hours on end they attempted to coerce Mr. Ikram into a confession for a crime he did not commit," Brewington said. "Investigators told him they liked him, and would not tell other law enforcement officers if he would finally tell the truth. One such false outrageous narrative included Mr. Ikram's culpability as his intended target was actually his wife while his daughter was accidentally harmed instead."

In a response letter sent days later, Ryder did not address the claims and said the investigation was ongoing.

A spokesman for Ryder did not respond to an inquiry about Brewington’s letter Tuesday.

But Ryder, speaking at Tuesday’s news conference, addressed criticism the department had received for not making an arrest sooner.

"For nearly five years, law enforcement ran down every lead," Ryder said. "They investigated every tip and every piece of evidence to find Nafiah’s attacker."

Ryder said the investigation was exhaustive, with "hundreds of subpoenas" for records issued in the case. "We took a lot of heat over the last five years, ‘Oh, you’re not doing enough. The police department’s not doing enough.’ Know this: The Nassau County Police Department never gives up on its victims."

A potential motive "is still being investigated," said Donnelly, who added that she doesn’t have any evidence to indicate the attack was a hate crime, motivated by the victim’s ethnicity or religion. Ikram is Muslim and her father is from Pakistan.

Two years after the attack, Donnelly said Campbell, an aspiring rapper, uploaded a music video that he produced to YouTube "boasting about throwing acid in a woman’s face."

He rapped in a song titled "Obsidian," which is a volcanic rock formed by lava, according to Donnelly: "On the street, in the night, like a hit man assassin. Trying to run up and have your face burn in acid."

The music video is still online, she said. "It’s sickening, it’s cruel and it’s brazen."

Donnelly said Campbell "used the attack to try to further his rap career."

By Nicole Fuller

nicole.fuller@newsday.com@NicoleFuller

Nicole Fuller is Newsday's senior criminal justice reporter. She began working at Newsday in 2012 and previously covered local government.