Serving CAIR At Its Own Banquet

As I write these words, the 14th Annual Banquet of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is underway at the Marriott Crystal Gateway in Arlington, Virginia.

The keynote speaker is America’s first Muslim member of Congress, Rep. Keith Ellison, and many other luminaries are in attendance.

According to the Madina Minaret:

‘Muslims and the Obama Administration’
Keith Ellison to Speak at CAIR Banquet

On Sunday, November 23rd, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) will offer a keynote address, titled “American Muslims and the Obama Administration,” at the 14th Annual Banquet of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Arlington, Va.

Banquet attendees will also hear from Muslim comedian Azhar Usman, former Ambassador Edward Peck and from Debbie Almontaser, founding principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy in New York. The dinner program will also feature the “2008 Rosa Parks Civil Liberties Award” and the “2008 Muslim Community Service Awards”

The link for the official banquet site at CAIR was not working as of this writing.

Unfortunately for the guests at tonight’s banquet, events have not proceeded as planned. A few days ago David Yerushalmi filed a federal civil complaint alleging criminal fraud and racketeering against CAIR. The alleged fraudulent behavior stems from CAIR’s advertising the services of Morris Days as an attorney at the local CAIR office in Herndon, Virginia. Mr. Days was billed as an advisor and counsel who could provide legal services to members of CAIR in need of help.

According to the complaint, not only did Mr. Days fail to provide legal services as requested and paid for, he was not even an attorney. The complaint asserts that when CAIR found out about the problem, the organization covered the situation up, even going to the extreme of denying any direct relationship with Morris Days. Several clients of CAIR were referred to David Yerushalmi, whose law office put together the civil complaint and filed it in federal court.

Associates of Mr. Yerushalmi took the opportunity of tonight’s banquet to serve CAIR director Nihad Awad with a summons. We are fortunate that volunteers were on hand to videotape this auspicious occasion. Below is the video of Dave Gaubatz, a member of Mapping Sharia, who served a summons on Nihad Awad, the Executive Director of CAIR:


Mr. Gaubatz's assistant distributed copies of the summons to tables throughout the dinner. It is also available at saneworks.us.

The other people named in the complaint can look forward to being served within the next week.

From the organizers of this effort comes this alert:

ALERT: at approximately 7:00 p.m. this evening, Nihad Awad, Executive Director of CAIR, was served a summons at the CAIR 14th Annual Banquet - onstage - by Dave Gaubatz. The dinner is ongoing and readers here will be able to see the Youtube video which was edited and uploaded to Youtube immediately after the dessert course.

Awad has just finished talking at the banquet, and the notorious Siraj Wahhaj is about to speak. Readers at GoV know that the Youtube video is up; CAIR officials, currently drinking their coffee, will find out soon enough…

In addition to the Council on American-Islamic Relations Action Network Inc., the individuals named in the complaint were:

• Nihad Awad a.k.a. Nihad Hammad, executive director of CAIR National
  
• Parvez Ahmed, chairman of the board of CAIR National during the relevant time period
  
• Tahra Goraya, former national director of CAIR who has since resigned
  
• Khadijah Athman, manager of the “civil rights” division of CAIR
  
• Nadhira al-Khalili, Esq., in-house legal counsel for CAIR.
  
• Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR’s director of communications
  
• Amina Rubin, coordinator of communications

- - - - - - - - -
According to David Yerushalmi, “The evidence has long suggested that CAIR is a criminal organization set up by the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas to further its aims of stealth Jihad in the U.S.

“But our investigation and this complaint makes clear that CAIR’s criminal activities know no bounds.

“According to the facts as carefully laid out in this complaint, CAIR has engaged in a massive cover-up of a criminal fraud in which literally hundreds of CAIR clients have been victimized and because of the CAIR cover-up they still don’t realize it. The fact that CAIR has victimized Muslims and non-Muslims alike demonstrates that CAIR is only looking out for CAIR and its ongoing effort to bilk donors out of millions of dollars of charitable donations thinking they are supporting a legitimate organization.”

Since this is still a breaking news story, I may be posting updates as more information arrives. Stay tuned.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
Below is the press release issued by David Yerushalmi’s office:

CAIR Sued by Former Clients for Racketeering,
Fraud, & Breach of Fiduciary Duties

For more information:
David Yerushalmi, Esq.
Law Offices of David Yerushalmi
ContactYerushalmiLaw@verizon.net
646.262.0500

November 24, 2008 — Washington, DC: Four clients of the Council on Islamic-American Relations (CAIR) have filed a federal civil complaint alleging criminal fraud and racketeering against CAIR, a self-described public interest civil rights law firm. The lawsuit also names CAIR’s national leadership as individual defendants.

Some of the defendants were served with the complaint and summons to appear while attending the CAIR 14th Annual Dinner Sunday night in Arlington, Virginia. Congressman Ellison (D-Minn) was a guest speaker at this affair.

The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that Morris Days, the “Resident Attorney” and “Manager for Civil Rights” at the now defunct CAIR MD/VA chapter in Herndon, Virginia, was in fact not an attorney and that he failed to provide legal services for clients who came to CAIR for assistance and who had paid for CAIR legal services.

While attorney David Yerushalmi represents the four plaintiffs in this particular lawsuit, two of whom are African American Muslims, the complaint alleges that according to CAIR internal documents, there were hundreds of victims of the CAIR-Days fraud scheme.

According to the complaint, CAIR failed to conduct a background check on Days prior to hiring him and when they did discover his massive fraud, they immediately set about to cover it up. CAIR officials purposefully concealed the truth about Days from their clients, law enforcement, the Virginia and D.C. state bar associations, and the media. When CAIR did get irate calls from clients about Days’ failure to provide competent legal services, CAIR fraudulently deceived their clients about Days’ relationship to CAIR, suggesting he was never actually employed by CAIR, and even concealed the fact that CAIR had fired him for criminal fraud.

“The evidence has long suggested that CAIR is a criminal organization set up by the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas to further its aims of stealth Jihad in the U.S.,” Mr. Yerushalmi said referring to the fact that CAIR has been named by the federal government as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror financing trial.

“But our investigation and this complaint makes clear that CAIR’s criminal activities know no bounds,” Yerushalmi continued.

“According to the facts as carefully laid out in this complaint,” Yerushalmi explained, “CAIR has engaged in a massive cover-up of a criminal fraud in which literally hundreds of CAIR clients have been victimized and because of the CAIR cover-up they still don’t realize it. The fact that CAIR has victimized Muslims and non-Muslims alike demonstrates that CAIR is only looking out for CAIR and its ongoing effort to bilk donors out of millions of dollars of charitable donations thinking they are supporting a legitimate organization.”

The complaint also alleges that in addition to covering up the Days fraud scheme, CAIR officials in D.C. forced angry clients who were demanding a return of their legal fees to sign a release that bought the client-victims’ silence by prohibiting them from informing law enforcement or the media about the CAIR-Days fraud. According to the agreement, if the “settling” clients said anything to anyone about the fraud scheme, CAIR would be able to sue them for $25,000.

This enforced code of silence left hundreds of CAIR client-victims in the dark such that to this day they have not learned that Days is not an attorney and that he had not filed the legal actions on their behalf for which Days and CAIR publicly claimed credit.

The four plaintiffs contacted their attorney David Yerushalmi only after they had spoken to Dave Gaubatz, a private researcher who had been investigating CAIR for its connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and its ties to global jihad. Had Gaubatz not informed the plaintiffs of the fraud, they would still be under the impression that Days was a competent attorney representing their legal interests in various lawsuits and administrative proceedings.

The complaint identifies CAIR as a racketeering enterprise under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), which is a criminal racketeering statute that allows victims to sue the defendants in civil court. In addition to damages, the plaintiffs are seeking injunctive relief under this and other statutes to shut down CAIR and to prevent the individual defendants from engaging in public interest legal work in the future.

The named defendants are: the Council on American-Islamic Relations Action Network Inc. (dba CAIR); Nihad Awad aka Nihad Hammad who serves as executive director of CAIR National; Parvez Ahmed who was the chairman of the board of CAIR National during the relevant time period; Tahra Goraya who was the national director of CAIR but who has since resigned; Khadijah Athman who is the manager of the “civil rights” division of CAIR; and Nadhira al-Khalili, Esq., who is in-house legal counsel for CAIR.

According to the complaint, CAIR’s in-house Washington, D.C.-based attorney Khalili was directly involved in taking the legal files out of the CAIR Virginia office and concealing them in the D.C. office.

Also named as defendants are Ibrahim Hooper and Amina Rubin, CAIR’s director of communications and coordinator of communications, respectively. According to the complaint, these two were directly responsible for issuing fraudulent press releases about the Days fraud scheme, thus aiding and abetting the CAIR cover-up.

About David Yerushalmi, Esq.

David Yerushalmi has been practicing law for almost 25 years. He is a litigator specializing in securities law, public policy relating to national security, and public interest law. Mr. Yerushalmi is licensed and practices in Washington D.C., New York, California, and Arizona.

For a copy of the complaint, email ContactYerushalmiLaw@verizon.net.