"Real sad she died".
Sabertooth, ping.
If you are ignorant enough not to realize that this very same thing has taken place in YOUR State then I have some ocean front property here in Indiana I would like to sell you.
Fraudulent-license seekers sentenced to time served
By Bill Dries
gomemphis.com
June 28, 2002
Four members of a fraudulent driver's license ring were sentenced Thursday to the nearly five months they've spent in prison awaiting trial on the federal conspiracy charge.
Khaled Odtllah, head of the scheme to get the New York City men Tennessee driver's licenses with a phony Cordova address, was released hours after being sentenced by U.S. Dist. Judge Bernice Donald.
But his three co-defendants - Mohammed Fares, Abdelmuhsen Mahmid Hammad and Mostafa Said Abou-Shahin - remained in custody to face deportation, a process that could take a year.
They were in the country illegally at the time of their arrest in February.
Odtllah, who lived in Cordova before his arrest, has permanent resident status.
"Under the circumstances I think this was the best possible outcome," Odtllah's attorney Anthony Helm said of the time-served sentence.
Under federal sentencing guidelines, the maximum sentence for each of the four would have been six months in prison because none had felony convictions.
The four defendants and fifth suspect, Sakher Hammad of Jordan, pleaded guilty in May to conspiring to fraudulently obtain driver's licenses. Sakher Hammad, who is free on bond, will be sentenced in August.
The case drew national attention when Katherine Smith, the Memphis driver's license examiner accused of being Odtllah's inside source for the licenses, died in a fiery car crash the day before her first court appearance.
Adding another twist, Sakher Hammad had a visitor's pass to the World Trade Center dated just days before the terrorist attack.
The guilty pleas and conspiracy charge made no mention of Smith's death or terrorist acts that prosecutors highlighted in the early stages of the case.
Asst. U.S. Atty. Tim DiScenza declined comment after the hearings on Smith's death and the continuing investigation into her death. Federal investigators have said the fire that burned Smith alive in her car was deliberately set and that traces of gasoline were found.
After the guilty pleas, a defense attorney released a letter purportedly written by Smith the day of her arrest and five days before her death in which she wrote she had "lost everything" and "can't live without any honor."