George Washington University Graduate School of Education and Human Development from January to December 2001. Time as imam In 1994, al-Awlaki married a cousin from Yemen, and began service as a part-time imam of the Denver Islamic Society. In 1996, he was chastised by an elder for encouraging a Saudi student to fight in Chechnya against the Russians. He left Denver soon after, moving to San Diego. From 1996 to 2000, al-Awlaki was imam of the Masjid Ar-Ribat al-Islami mosque in San Diego, California, where he had a following of 200–300 people. U.S. officials later alleged that Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77, attended his sermons and personally met him during this period, although Al-Awlaki told authorities their conversations were trivial in nature. Hazmi later lived in Northern Virginia and attended al-Awlaki's mosque there. The 9/11 Commission Report said that the hijackers "reportedly respected [al-Awlaki] as a religious figure". While in San Diego, al-Awlaki volunteered with youth organizations, fished, discussed his travels with friends, and created a popular and lucrative series of recorded lectures. In August 1996 and in April 1997, al-Awlaki was arrested in San Diego and charged with soliciting prostitutes. The first time, in 1996, he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was fined $400 and required to attend informational sessions about AIDS. The second time, in 1997, he pleaded guilty and was fined $240, ordered to perform 12 days of community service, and received three years' probation. From November 2001 to January 2002 the FBI observed him visiting a number of prostitutes, and interviewed them, establishing that he had paid for sex acts. No prosecution was brought. In 1998 and 1999, he served as vice-president for the Charitable Society for Social Welfare. Although the FBI investigated al-Awlaki from June 1999 through March 2000 for possible links to Hamas, the Bin Laden contact Ziyad Khaleel, and a visit by an associate of Omar Abdel Rahman, it did not find sufficient evidence for a criminal prosecution. In 2004, the FBI described this group as a "front organization to funnel money to terrorists". Al-Awlaki told reporters that he resigned from leading the San Diego mosque "after an uneventful four years," and took a brief sabbatical, traveling overseas to various countries. Al-Awlaki decided to pursue his PhD and was accepted at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and was soon recruited to be the imam