The task of sorting out whether Michael Abdallah is a rapist or a benevolent young man begins Thursday at a felony hearing in Buffalo City Court.

Police say Abdallah, 26, is a manipulative individual who managed to keep a 13-year-old girl under his control for months, repeatedly raping her in his East Side home and forcing her to baby-sit his infant son.

“He’s a drug dealer in the Central Park neighborhood where he met the girl,” a law enforcement official familiar with the case said Tuesday. “He lured her in.”

Abdallah’s friends and family say he is a good Samaritan, concerned for a runaway teenager he met in the city’s Central Park neighborhood and wanted to provide her shelter while she got her life in order.

“Everybody has had their moments, but Mike is not a monster. As long as I’ve known Mike, he’s always been kindhearted to me. If he could help you, he will help you,” said Alicia Bellaus, 20, a West Side resident who grew up next door to Abdallah’s relatives in Black Rock.

Bellaus says she has spoken with the teenage girl, who claimed to be 17 or 18 years old and wanted to live with Abdallah rather than return home to her mother. Bellaus also insists that the teenager could have left Abdallah’s home anytime she wanted.

“I’ve met her, the 13-year-old, and she told me she did not want to leave the house. She did not want to go home. She did not want to be anywhere near her mother. They weren’t getting along,” Bellaus said. “She cried to Mike, and Mike felt bad for her, and Mike stepped up. I asked her if Mike had sex with her, and she said no.”

In contrast, police say Abdallah, of Thomas Street, was a master at manipulating young people, operating a string of drug houses where 14-and 15-year-old boys sold marijuana for him.

“He was smart and manipulative, hiring young teens who could not be busted for selling marijuana because of their age. He was the same way with the girl. He knew how to manipulate her,” the law enforcement official said.

And while Abdallah was charged with unlawful imprisonment, the official explained that it was not a case of locking the girl up against her will, but using psychological ploys to keep her under his control from July to December.

The teenager’s family, according to police, filed several missing-person complaints about her since she disappeared in July.

This is not the first time that Abdallah and his family have been in the news.

His father, Saleh K. Abdullah, was the owner of the Super Speedy Deli, situated in a 2z-story brick building where two Buffalo firefighters died last August.

The Abdallah family, some of whom spell their last name differently, also was in the news in 2008 after their then-21-year-old daughter, Etidal, a Trocaire College student, disappeared for five months, prompting fears that she had been abducted.

The family hired a private detective, who found the woman living with a relative’s girlfriend in Buffalo.

According to Bellaus, who says she was once romantically involved with Abdallah, he was almost fatherly in his care of the 13- year-old.

“Mike always had her calling to someone, supposedly her aunt, to say she was doing OK. From what I knew, her aunt or her mom knew where she was staying,” Bellaus said. “To look at her, she is very developed physically, and you would think that she is older than 13.”

Police, however, dismissed claims that Abdallah had the girl’s best interest at heart, accusing him of having sex with her more than 100 times in the past year.

At 2 p. m. Thursday in City Court, Rosanne E. Johnson, chief of the Erie County district attorney’s Special Victims Bureau, is expected to argue that Abdallah should be held for a review by the grand jury.

In addition to unlawful imprisonment, he has been charged with second-degree rape and custodial interference. He is being represented by a court-appointed lawyer, Frank Bogulski.

When Ferry-Fillmore District Officer Ann Vanyo arrested Abdallah last week at his Thomas Street home, she noted in her report that the doors to his house lacked doorknobs and could only be opened by a key that operated two deadbolts. He also was charged with possession of marijuana.

Authorities have declined to say where the 13-year-old is currently residing.

Abdallah’s 1-year-old son is staying with his relatives.