Posted on 02/14/2004 2:34:03 AM PST by csvset
Judge keeps man facing immigration charge in jail By TIM MCGLONE, The Virginian-Pilot © February 13, 2004 Last updated: 11:52 PM
NORFOLK — A federal judge, citing the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has refused to allow a Middle Eastern man to go free while he awaits trial on charges of immigration fraud.
The Lebanese man, Fares Mohamad Ali Dayekh, argued through his lawyer that he needed to stay with his sick wife and care for their four children until the trial.
Dayekh, 34, is accused of creating and selling phony documents that have allowed an unknown number of immigrants to enter the country illegally, according to a 13-count indictment filed in Norfolk’s federal court.
U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar on Wednesday ordered Dayekh detained, saying he had no idea whether some of the people who received the phony documents were members of al-Qaida. Dayekh himself had at least five fake IDs.
“That causes me great concern,” Doumar said. “I’m scared.”
He went on to mention the hatred of the United States in the Middle East, Syria’s military occupation of Lebanon and Leon Uris’ novel “The Haj.”
In citing “The Haj,” a novel described by its publisher as a “sweeping tale of a land where revenge is sacred and hatred noble,” Doumar said the culture in the Middle East supports the killing of U.S. citizens.
From August 2000 through September 2001, Dayekh supplied phony employment papers and other documents that made it easy for immigrants to enter the country illegally, according to the indictment.
In one case, Dayekh is accused of supplying a fake letter from IBM stating that a woman from India, Harsha Bhatt, was employed with the company as an electrical engineer. Bhatt, who was living in Virginia Beach in 2000, used the letter and other phony immigration documents in an attempt to obtain a Social Security card.
Bhatt’s arrest last July led to the indictment against Dayekh. Bhatt has pleaded guilty to using a false document and was sentenced to three years of probation. Her immigration status could not be learned.
Dayekh was arrested late January in New York, where he lives with his wife and four children. A judge in New York granted Dayekh bond, but he remained in jail while federal prosecutors appealed that decision in Norfolk. Doumar on Wednesday granted the appeal.
Doumar said Dayekh’s frequent business trips to Lebanon were one of his main concerns because no one could explain what type of business he is involved in.
The judge called Lebanon “a staging ground for terrorists” and said there is such hatred against the United States there because of the Syrian troops that occupy that country.
“We are in a time of crisis,” the judge said.
Dayekh’s lawyer, Keith L. Kimball, argued that Dayekh simply wanted to be with his wife, who has been undergoing chemotherapy at a New York hospital, and their children.
At one point, Doumar had a clerk call Dayekh’s doctor by speaker phone in the court, but the doctor was not available.
Dayekh is expected to be brought to Norfolk next week to face a formal hearing on the charges.
Reach Tim McGlone at 446-2343 or tim.mcglone@pilotonline.com.
Maybe he should have thought of their dependence on him before he knowingly engaged in this sort of illegal business.
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