Replies

The following is info. on the connection between Philadelphia's, Mayor Street and a Muslim cleric.....fraud and connections to city contracts including the airport.

Wife of Muslim Cleric Indicted in Federal Fraud Probe

Posted on Wed, Jun. 02, 2004 By George Anastasia, Maria Panaritis and Nancy Phillips INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS

Federal prosecutors today announced the first indictments linked to the sprawling probe of political corruption in Philadelphia City Hall.

Faridah Ali, 54, the wife of Imam Shamsud-din Ali, was named in a 28-count indictment charging her and others with fraud in connection with state-funded adult education programs at Sister Clara Muhammad School in West Philadelphia from 1999 to 2001.

The alleged scam surfaced several years ago as the FBI monitored wiretaps of the imam's home and cellular telephones - the same wiretaps that unexpectedly prompted them to launch the federal corruption probe.

Today's indictment, while unrelated to corruption, nonetheless strikes very close to home. Targeting Ali's wife and two step-children among others, it signals that federal authorities are beginning to move forward with prosecuting their far-flung investigation, which began about three years ago.

Shamsud-din Ali, the leader of the mosque that houses the Sister Clara school, was not named in the indictment but remains a focus of investigators. It was while monitoring the imam's telephone conversations with suspected drug dealers in 2001 that the FBI also heard talk of potentially rigged city contracts, prompting them to launch the broad corruption probe that has come to envelope city officials. Those same wiretaps also revealed the alleged scam outlined in yesterday's indictment.

In a news conference today, U.S. Attorney Patrick L. Meehan did not discuss the case's links to the corruption probe, focusing instead on the alleged misuse of nearly $250,000 in Pennsylvania Department of Education funds for no-show classes and ghost teachers........

.....Although the corruption probe was launched three years ago, it did not become public until October 7, when an FBI listening device was found inside the office of Mayor Street. The next day, the FBI raided Ali's Melrose Park home and the Mount Airy office where he and his wife run several businesses, including a handful with city contracts.

Link to Full Article

======

Feds Accidentally Reveal Details of Phone Taps in Philadelphia Probe

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Federal authorities inadvertently disclosed secret details of an investigation into alleged corruption in Philadelphia when they posted information about wiretapping in the case on a court Web site.

For several hours Friday, the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts included what was supposed to have been sealed information about the probe in an annual public report on government surveillance. A revised report, without the confidential information, was released Tuesday.

The original report gave the names of the federal judges who authorized the wiretaps, and the dates they were placed. It indicated that some of the taps had been placed as part of a racketeering investigation, and noted that more than 5,000 "incriminating intercepts" were made during the period when law enforcement agents were listening in.

The document did not contain the names of the people whose phones were tapped, but the information could be ascertained by matching dates on tapes listed in the document with dates on letters sent by prosecutors to people whose conversations were recorded. The two-year investigation came to light Oct. 7, when police discovered an FBI bug that had been placed in the City Hall office of Mayor John F. Street.

Legal documents subsequently confirmed that federal agents had also tapped the phones of the city's treasurer, an administrator at Philadelphia International Airport, an attorney who raised money for Street's campaign, and a Muslim leader who owns a company that held city contracts.

Street and the others involved have denied any wrongdoing.... Link to Article