Posted on 06/28/2002 12:58:11 AM PDT by sarcasm
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."
I can't believe that INS can't figure a way to cancel his "permanent resident" status and deport the bum for leading the scheme to steal licenses.
Pathetic use of prosecutors funds. I only hope they tail him to see where he goes and who he contacts.
The Hammad cousins who claimed to be plumbers were un-licensed and admitted they were working on the sprinkler systems in the WTC days before 9-11.
The FEMA report on why the towers collapsed concluded the sprinkler systems were disabled.
The Port Authority has no record of a tenant requesting work on a sprinkler system.
The reported company the un-licensed Middle Eastern plumbers worked for does not exist.
Katherine Smith was burned alive in Odtlah's car.
The terrorists walk.
Thought might be interested in these guys walking. Added the link for my reference.
START: 00.08.20
Teased Segment - Fair Trial. Attorney of one of the Middle Eastern men accused of driver's license scam worried about fair trail after September 11th.
Visual - Suspects.
Interview - Robert Friedman (Attorney).
END: 00.09.45
Then the agents searched a fifth man, Sakhera Hammad of New York, whom the men identified as their second contact, and found an alarming piece of paper. Mr. Hammad had a worker's pass to the World Trade Center dated Sept. 5. Suddenly, the case became a possible terrorist plot.
In a telephone interview on Saturday, Mr. Hammad's father, Peter Hansen, said his son was a plumber, and he provided a letter he said he had obtained from his son's employer attesting to his work at the trade center. In the letter, dated Feb. 13, Sergei Denko, president of Denko Mechanical, said Mr. Hammad had been working for his company in the basement garage area of 1 World Trade Center.
"He was there for a couple of days," Mr. Denko said in an interview.
An attacker ambushed Shelby County Medical Examiner Dr. O. C. Smith Saturday night, wrapped him from head to toe in barbed wire and strapped a bomb to his body.
Police said Smith left his office at about 10 and was headed to the parking lot when someone threw an acid-like substance in his face to subdue him.
For nearly three hours, he was unable to move or shout for help because of the barbed wire in his mouth.
A security guard spotted Smith's vehicle in the parking lot, became suspicious and found Smith about 12:30 a.m. Sunday outside the office building in the medical center.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/686591/posts
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.
Sentencing for the men is scheduled for June 27. Prosecutors have recommended the low end of the scale in federal sentencing, which is a maximum of five years and a minimum of zero.
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.
Clarification: The case drew national attention when 4 arabs in the country illegally travelled from NYC to Tennesee to obtain legitimate state issued driver's licenses containted falsified names and addresses. That the state employee sold these licenses to arabs after the 9/11 attack was an act that compromised our nation's security.
Seeing as how the airlines require adults to show a driver's license to get a boarding pass and again to get on a plane, these jokers have shown that there is no safety in such precautions as the "national" IDs that FAA so treasures are worthless. Driver's licenses are a way to tax automobile drivers. If you want to use them to confirm adulthood status in the sale of alcohol so be it but there are plenty of underaged kids running around with fake IDs or real IDs that belong to someone else.
That this woman was murdered seemed to make the story disappear from the national landscape rather than elevate it's national attention.
"Well, I understand that you did not commit this crime but there is really little that we can do to give you that time served back."
All this amounts to is a slap on the wrist.
But, at least according to a May 20, 2002 Memphis Commercial Appeal article, Peter is an "engineer."
"...DiScenza dropped government objections to a release on bond after Hammad's father, Peter Hansen, put up his Staten Island home as security for a $250,000 bond.Hansen, a senior engineer for the City of New York, testified at the March hearing that his son was "born again" when he came legally to the U.S. from Jordan. ...
Sounds like Peter changed his name, or something - or he's not Arab in the first place. The family identity "issues" must be intense in that family.
Ya really got me scurrying in research! Just a coincidence"...or not??? The whole thing is very strange. Much thanks for the post.
Brilliant deduction, considering the nature of the case, the fact that they are muslims here illegally and the unsolved case of Katherine Smith is, in most likelihood, connected.
> First, good news -- from the USFE and Firehouse.Com site: after > petitioning Congress, accusing NY of concealing evidence by the quick > recycling of critical steel beams, the civil engineers of the Nat'l > Institute now have access to over 60 steel beams they found in salvage > yards which had not been melted down and recycled. On 4/16, they were > particularly happy to report finding an intact beam that, according to > the numbers stamped on it, went from floor 101 to 103. Report > pending. These folks are not "conspiratorial", they just want to know > WHY the towers collapsed when, according to most calculations, they > should not have.
Hate to break this to you, but who do you think saved those beams?
And having NIST look at them was always the plan. Nothing the USFE, etc did has changed anything.
> Now to your questions:
> > (1) This Saker "Rocky" Hammad thing has me ready to scream; I'm dead > ended, out of ideas to research, and can't think of any plausible > theory to explain the known data.
It isn't that hard.
> I can't find ANY reliable account of why Sakher and his cousin were in > the garage and lower level basement of the WTC on 9/5 and 9/6, > although per Rocky's WTC pass and his court testimony and a letter > from his "boss", they undisputably were "working" in the WTC on those > dates.
So you think Denko was lying and they weren't working for him?
> First day in court, Rocky says he and his cousin were repairing the > sprinkler system. The business card he had with him was "Magic Heating > and Air -- call Rocky at xxxxxx". The card advertised residential > counter-top installation and repair, residential plumbing and air > conditioner service. Investigative journalist calls to the number > listed got a voice message: "Rocky's voice mail is full". Traces to > the address listed on the card showed this to be the residence of > Sakher Hammad and several others with Arabic names.
And what would you expect? Hammad hadn't been home in quite a while, he apparently did have a business, and apparently he did work for other people. Check the address with the NYC tax assessor's office. I'll bet it's an apartment house. The others had different phone numbers, didn't they?
> Second time in court, 3/28/02, reported in only two Memphis news > articles I could find, he is released on bail with no objection from > the DA. His father, Peter Hansen, reportedly an engineer for the City > of New York who immigrated from Jordan 15 years ago, who now lives on > Staten Island, brought a letter from Rocky's "boss", a Sergei Denko of > Denko Mechanical Ltd. (not Magic Plumbing). In phone calls to the > number listed, not published in the news articles, Mr. Sergei Denko > verified that Rocky and his cousin (also arrested in the Memphis scam) > were working in the WTC garage and lower level basement "for a couple > of days" in early September -- no further explanation (in the news > articles). The Port Authority has no record, and claims he must have > been hired by a tenant in the building (??? -- for the sprinkler > system??). One earlier article reported that Rocky was close to his > mother, no name given, who is still a resident of Gaza/Jordan.
> > Frustrated, I ran my own amateur trace over the net -- the only Denko > Mechanical I could find was a refrigeration company in Manitoba.
You didn't look quite hard enough. The State of New York has a business entity filing for Denko Mechanical, filed 2/8/2000.
Denko Mechanical, Inc. 232 E 26th Street Ste 21 New York, New York 10010
Chief Operation Officer Sergei Denko same address
> I > could find no Sergei Denko in the US or Canada.
That would be because his real name is Davidenko.
Sergei Davidenko 232 E. 26th Street New York, NY 10010
And 232 E. 26th Street is a 5 story walkup, 22 apartments.
> Mr. Hansen admitted > in court he did not see his son often -- Mr. Hansen lives on Staten > Island and Rocky lives in Brooklyn at an address I found registered to > 14 others with Arabic names;
You have heard of apartment buildings, haven't you. Did the other people have the same phone number? Again, check with the NYC tax assessors office. Bets are it's an apartment house.
> Rocky also was listed at a residence in > Memphis. His car and another, with NY tags, had driven down from New > York to Memphis the day of their arrest (in February) and were in the > process of obtaining four fake drivers licenses for Arabic aliens at > the time of arrest. Per my amateur trace, his father couldn't have > lived at the Staten Island residence for more than a year because the > address was registered to someone else in 2001 who was, until 2001, > active in the Staten Island community. Mr. Hansen testified he made > Rocky's $250,000 bail by second mortgaging his home.
Hansen owns a $305,000 house (tax evaluation) and Mid-Island Equities holds the mortgage.
> And I keep remembering how OSB said he didn't know himself the date of > the attack until the previous Thursday -- Sept 6. > > As for the rest of your questions:
> > (2) My sources are basic internet search: the CBS documentary > transcripts and transcripts from the Naudet video, and articles cited > in the NY Times, NY Daily News (January 4, 2002), and USFE magazine, > most of which feature quotations by Bill Manning of the USFE (a name > to use if you're using a search engine). The articles I've read note > Chief Pfeiffer's team as having explosive experts, which is why they > had been sent to a (false alarm) possible gasoline leak (minutes > before the first plane hit). I recall more than one article stating > they were among the first to arrive and I presumed that was a > universally accepted fact. Is it not? I believe you said "the first to arrive", not one of the first. > (3) In all fairness, in checking further (I have a box full of printed > articles), witnesses in the lobby DID report seeing a fireball come > from the freight elevator shaft, and that was the source of the two > "burning bodies" encountered by Naudet when he entered the lobby -- he > decided not to film anything so gruesome. The lobby, then, is clearly > not as strong a pro-bomb argument as I had first believed, and I think > a couple of conspiratorial sites exaggerated the initial reports of > the firemen saying, "it looked like a bomb exploded in the lobby".
So, not knowing anything about what happened, what is a logical description of the area around the trade center just after the planes crashed?
> (3) Most of the reasonable evidence for "bomb" or "detonation" > theories comes from an engineering standpoint, as in the beginning of > this thread -- of the articles I've been able to find on the net, > about 50% of them don't believe the jet fuel fire and plane crash were > enough to collapse the buildings. It certainly surprised the firemen > on the scene -- other high rises have withstood intense upper level > fires for 3 and 4 hours.
But those buildings were not (a) built like the WTC towers and WTC7, and (b) did not have accelerants added to the fire. You do know that a good bit of the other WTC buildings collapsed too, don't you?
> Also they cite problems with the type of > debris found
Those problems being? >and the manner in which the buildings collapsed, Which is what kind of problem? >and the Tower 7 problem. There is no "Tower 7 problem" except in the minds of conspiracy theorists. It was constructed just like WTC1 and 2 and had hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel in it. It burned for many hours before it's steel beams gave way. >There is not enough evidence to PROVE a bomb, but >there is enough doubt to warrant a THOROUGH investigation. How do you investigate when there is not enough evidence? > ??? IF Sakher(a) Hammad and his cousin were in the WTC illegitimately > on 9/5 and 9/6, what MIGHT they have done? You tell me -- I'm still > hunting.
Worked on the sprinkler system?
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