Free Republic

Five New York City men with ties to the Middle East were indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday for their part in an alleged scheme to fraudulently obtain Tennessee driver's licenses. In the indictment on one count of conspiracy to commit fraud, federal authorities shed no new light on the death of state license examiner Katherine Smith. Smith and the five men were charged in a Feb. 6 criminal complaint on an identical conspiracy charge. Smith died Feb. 10 in a fiery car crash on U.S. 72 in Fayette County, the day before she was to appear at a ...

MEMPHIS, Tenn.- Three of four men charged in a Tennessee driver's license fraud case pleaded guilty Monday in federal court. Mostafa Said Abou-Shahin, Khaled Odtllah and Sakher A. Hammad each admitted before U.S. District Court Judge Bernice Donald that they tried to obtain the licenses illegally. The fourth defendant, Abdelmuhsen Mahmid Hammad, was to appear in court Monday afternoon. Each of the four men, three from New York City and one from the Memphis suburb of Cordova, had ties to the Middle East. The men were charged with operating a scam in which driver's license examiner Katherine Smith would provide...

MEMPHIS, Tenn., Feb 16, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Shortly before 1 a.m. last Sunday, witnesses saw flames erupt from the back seat of a 1992 Acura Legend as it crawled along a two-lane road skirting farm fields in the little Tennessee town of Piperton. The driver breathed in the flames, her lungs searing, as the car veered off the road and came to rest against a utility pole near the Mississippi state line. There were no skid marks or furrows in the grass to indicate the driver had hit the brakes. A witness rushed up and pulled ...

One of five suspects in a drivers license fraud ring was released Thursday after his father agreed to put up property, including his Staten Island home, as bond. Federal prosecutor Tim DiScenza dropped opposition to Sakher A. Hammad's release after his father, Peter Hansen, a civil engineer employed by New York City government, signed the $250,000 bond. But DiScenza fought a bid for bail by co-defendant Khaled Odtllah. U.S. Dist. Judge Bernice Donald is scheduled to rule Monday on that matter. DiScenza also told Donald that the government wants separate trials in rapid succession for the five defendants, with Odtllah,...

A photo ID pass for Sept. 5 found on one of the men charged with fraudulently obtaining a Tennessee driver's license from a Memphis woman gave him access to the six underground levels of the One World Center building. But which tenant hired Sakher 'Rocky' Hammad, 24, to work on its sprinklers is lost, said Port Authority of New York and New Jersey spokesman Alan Hicks on Friday. Hammad told federal authorities that he was working on the sprinklers six days before the twin towers were brought down by terrorists, court testimony revealed this week. But Hicks said the Port ...

Flaming death no accident, FBI says Gasoline found on clothes of license examiner By Bill Dries dries@gomemphis.com The fiery death of a driver's license examiner at the center of a federal fraud investigation was not an accident, an FBI agent said here Wednesday in federal court. "Katherine Smith obviously lived two lives, maybe more. She may have had other things going on in her life that may have led to her death." - Karen Cicala Federal and state investigators found gasoline on the clothes Katherine Smith was wearing when she died Sunday in a car crash on a stretch of ...

The fiery death of a driver's license examiner at the center of a federal fraud investigation was not an accident, an FBI agent said here Wednesday in federal court. Federal and state investigators found gasoline on the clothes Katherine Smith was wearing when she died Sunday in a car crash on a stretch of U.S. 72 in Fayette County, FBI agent J. Suzanne Nash told U.S. Magistrate Judge J. Daniel Breen. Nash also testified that investigators found evidence of some kind of accelerant in the burned-out interior of Smith's car. "Katherine Smith obviously lived two lives, maybe more. She may ...

By Bill Dries, dries@gomemphis.com A Memphis woman allegedly at the center of a scheme to sell fraudulent Tennessee driver's licenses was identified Tuesday as the person whose burned body was found early Sunday in the wreckage of a car in Fayette County. L icense examiner Katherine Smith was probably alive when her car hit a utility pole on U.S. 72 near the Mississippi state line, said Tennessee Highway Patrol Lt. Col. Mark Fagan. Smith, 49, died the day before she was due to appear before a federal magistrate judge for a detention hearing on a charge of conspiracy to obtain ...