Federal Judge in Los Angeles Dismisses Terrorism Fund-Raising Case Against Seven Iranians
The Associated Press
Published: Jun 22, 2002

Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK or MKO)
From: Patterns of Global Terrorism, 2000. United States Department of State, April 2001

Comments on the content of the material should be sent to the U.S. Department of State

Other Names
The National Liberation Army of Iran (NLA, the militant wing of the MEK)
The People's Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI)
National Council of Resistance (NCR)
Muslim Iranian Student's Society (front organization used to garner financial support)

Description
Formed in the 1960s by the college-educated children of Iranian merchants, the MEK sought to counter what it perceived as excessive Western influence in the Shah's regime. Following a philosophy that mixes Marxism and Islam, has developed into the largest and most active armed Iranian dissident group. Its history is studded with anti-Western activity and, most recently, attacks on the interests of the clerical regime in Iran and abroad.

Activities
Worldwide campaign against the Iranian Government stresses propaganda and occasionally uses terrorist violence. During the 1970s the MEK staged terrorist attacks inside Iran and killed several US military personnel and civilians working on defense projects in Tehran. Supported the takeover in 1979 of the US Embassy in Tehran. In April 1992 conducted attacks on Iranian embassies in 13 different countries, demonstrating the group's ability to mount large-scale operations overseas. The normal pace of anti-Iranian operations increased during the "Operation Great Bahman" in February 2000, when the group claimed it launched a dozen attacks against Iran. During the remainder of the year, the MEK regularly claimed that its members were involved in mortar attacks and hit-and-run raids on Iranian military, law enforcement units, and government buildings near the Iran-Iraq border. The MEK also claimed six mortar attacks on civilian government and military buildings in Tehran.

Strength
Several thousand fighters based in Iraq with an extensive overseas support structure. Most of the fighters are organized in the MEK's National Liberation Army (NLA).

Location/Area of Operation
In the 1980s the MEK's leaders were forced by Iranian security forces to flee to France. Most resettled in Iraq by 1987. In the mid-1980s the group did not mount terrorist operations in Iran at a level similar to its activities in the 1970s. In the 1990s, however, the MEK claimed credit for an increasing number of operations in Iran.

External Aid
Beyond support from Iraq, the MEK uses front organizations to solicit contributions from expatriate Iranian communities.

http://library.nps.navy.mil/ho me/tgp/mek.htm

This judge is a "real Work of Art":

He seems to have a history of supporting :
Illegal Aliens.
Smuggling Rings.
Immigration Violations.
And Terror related Activities.

This was from an archived Google Cache...

Trial of seven Ukrainians accused of immigrant smuggling starts

By SANDRA MARQUEZ Associated Press Writer
Published 7:10 p.m. PDT Tuesday, May 7, 2002

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A smuggling ring that lured hundreds of Ukrainians to Los Angeles - many of them young women who were forced into prostitution - was a "full service" operation that netted hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal profits, federal prosecutors said Tuesday. "They smuggled illegal aliens in boats, in the trunks of cars, and on foot," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Aveis. "And they did it over, and over, and over again."

During opening statements in federal court, prosecutors provided an inside look into what they described as a conspiracy by seven Ukrainians they allege operated an all-cash smuggling ring that transported would-be immigrants from Ukraine to Los Angeles - with stops in Mexico City and Baja California.

The defendants are: Tetyana Komisaruk, 50; her husband, Veleriy Komisaruk, 40; her daughters, Nataliya Korolova, 31, and Lorina Latysheva, 25; Latysheva's husband, Oleksandr Latyshev, 29; Serge Mezheritsky, 36; and Grigoriy Chernov, 50.

They face multiple charges, including: conspiracy to transport illegal aliens; importing and harboring aliens for the purpose of prostitution and money laundering.

The trial before U.S. District Court Judge Robert Takasugi is expected to last about six weeks. A picture emerged from the first day of the trail of an illicit family business, with five relatives and their friends allegedly dividing up tasks, including: coaching immigrants on what to tell U.S. Border Patrol agents if caught; giving them clothes, including Levi's, in order to help them blend in; and teaching them how to walk across the border.

"Some of them, both men and women, had their hair bleached blonde," Aveis said. "It took several hours to bleach the hair of one of these Ukrainian women and she was told she would have to pay $250 for the job."

The prosecutor said the immigrants paid an initial $2,500 to get to Mexico City, where they were shuttled to hotels and a safe-house in Baja. The Ukrainians then were told they had to pay more to enter the United States.

Tetyana Komisaruk was described as the ringleader, responsible for overseeing the "comings and goings" of the smuggled Ukrainians and demanding payment from them. Wiretapped conversations caught her referring to the smuggled women as "whores," Aveis said.

Prosecutors said she shared command of the operation with her husband, Valeriy Komisaruk, who "helped operate staging points in Mexico," including a villa near the California border where the smuggled immigrants were housed until they arrived in the United States.

Mezheritsky, a Ukrainian emigre who once ran unsuccessfully for City Council in West Hollywood, was described as the third key player. He provided boats and cars for smuggling illegal aliens, Aveis said, and "worked with Mexican guides to shepherd illegal aliens into the United States."

Ellen Barry, the attorney representing Valeriy Komisaruk, said the smuggled aliens who will serve as witnesses on the government's behalf were no innocents.

"They were willing to deceive whoever they had to deceive to get across the border," she said. "And when they got caught and found out what the government was willing to offer them, they were willing to do and say whatever they had to."

The investigation was triggered by a video camera that Border Patrol agents found on a dirt trail near the U.S.-Mexico border in 1999. The taped showed what appeared to be the trip of a Russian family "through Hungary, Mexico City and up to Tijuana," Aveis said.

The defendants face up to 10 years in prison for each smuggled alien.

AND How did the Judge Rule...

Anyone know?

He seems to do alot of work with Immigration violations. Overall he is very pro-immigrant and pro-illegal-immigrant.

He was appointed by Clinton as soon as Clinton came to office...

PRESIDENT NAMES HAYASHI FOR CIVIL RIGHTS POST AT HHS

(Washington, DC) The President announced today the appointment of Asian-American civil rights attorney Dennis Hayashi to be Director of the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Civil Rights.

"Dennis Hayashi has had a distinguished career of both legal and public advocacy for equal rights," said the President. "I am counting on him to continue his good work as part of Secretary Shalala's team at HHS. We need to continue to work for fair treatment for all Americans."

Hayashi, who served as part of the Clinton/Gore Transition's civil rights cluster, is the National Director of the Japanese American Citizens League, the largest and oldest Asian Pacific American civil rights organization in the country. He previously worked for more than a decade as an attorney for the Asian Law Caucus, Inc., where he oversaw litigation of major impact cases and directed legislative advocacy on both the federal and state levels. Hayashi has also been Associate Grievance Director for a San Francisco local of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees International Union, an instructor a the New College of California Law School, and Law Clerk to U.S. District Court Judge Robert Takasugi.

A graduate of Occidental College and the Hastings College of the Law, Hayashi has also published articles in the Yale Law School Journal of International Law and the Kennedy School of Government's Asian American Policy Review, as well as in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and other newspapers. He lives in Oakland, California.

RELATED to this JUDGE...
He ruled that the Airport Security Law clashed with the Fifth Amendment.

Aviation security law dared

Law clashes with Fifth Amendment, groups claim

By Grace Santa Ana

Airport screeners and their lawyers joined Ramona Ripston, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California (first row, second from left) at a news conference in Los Angeles.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - “There is no rational basis for the citizenship requirement.” Orrin Baird, associate general counsel at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) here, summarized the lawsuit filed January 17 by the SEIU, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), National Federation of Filipino American Associations and several advocate groups at the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against Department of Tourism Secretary Norman Mineta and Undersecretary John Magaw.

“We allege that prohibiting non-citizens from remaining as airport screeners violates the Fifth Amendment, which states the rights of persons. All people should be treated equally,” Ben Wizner, staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California, told Philippine News.

Hank Price, spokesperson for the newly formed Transportation Security Administration, told reporters he could not comment on the ongoing litigation. In November 2001, President George W. Bush signed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, which called for the federalization of airports within a year.

The act also requires all airport baggage screeners nationwide, about 25 percent of whom are legal permanent residents, to be U.S. citizens.

By most estimates, about one-fourth of the low-paid, high-turnover jobs are held by noncitizens, and the numbers are higher at metropolitan airports like San Francisco, where 80 percent of the 800 screeners are noncitizens, and Los Angeles International, where 40 percent of the 1,000 screeners are not citizens.

The suit is primarily represented by screeners from Los Angeles and San Francisco, but union lawyers say a ruling would have nationwide impact.

Many of those affected are Philippine immigrants named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

“Napamahal na yung trabaho sa akin,” Ruby Gonzales Boja told PNews of the screener job she has had for almost five years now, and is in danger of losing with the act’s implementation.

“Why does the U.S. government even get immigrants from the Philippines to serve in the U.S. Navy or Marines, and they don’t have to be citizens,” questioned Boja, a 5-year permanent resident.

In support of Boja’s concern, the lawsuit states, “Non-citizens may be members of our military, and lawful permnent residents are required by law to register for the draft. Non-citizens may also serve in the National Guard, which, after September 11, now performs armed security duties at screening stations side by side with non-citizen screeners whose employment will be terminated by (the act).” Boja, who filed for citizenship February 2001 so she can vote, just hopes she will be granted citizenship in time for the November 2002 deadline. “I think it’s discriminatory. We do our best for the safety of the passengers. One year is not enough to know the job,” the former regional manager for a marketing company in the Philippines told PNews.

Eliseo Medina, SEIU executive vice president, agrees, “Amercian wants security, not scapegoating. Experienced, hard-working, tax-paying immigrant screeners are part of the solutions, not part of the problem. They should be allowed to remain in the job.”

Mark Rosenbaum, legal director for ACLU of Southern California, said, “Taking qualified, experienced screeners off the job because of their citizenship status won’t make anyone safer.

“By eliminating thousands of skilled, qualified, and experienced screeners solely on the baiss of their citizenship status, and replacing those workers with people who have no on-the-job training or experience, we are opening the door to unnecessary security risks at our airports.”

ACT OF CONGRESS

Immigrant advocates have high hopes for the case. By random draw, it was assigned to veteran U.S. District Judge Robert Takasugi, who was held with his family for more than three years in an internment camp for Japanese Americans in World War II.

“There are no foreseeable challenges. Hopefully, Congress will act even before the case goes to court, and strike down the security requirement,” Baird told PNews. “We hope Congress sees this suit, and decide to fix it by changing the law,” Wizner agreed.

On Senator Dianne Feinstein’s (D-California) pending legislation to permit lawful permanent residents eligible to become U.S. citizens within one year to remain as airport screeners, he said, “It’s a step in the right direction, but it does not cover all immigrants. “What we’re hoping for is for Congress to build on all noncitizens.”

Another Ruling by this judge...

Freedom of Information Cases:

Wiener v. FBI

Wiener v. FBI

U.S. District Court, Central District Suit to require the FBI to turn over documents requested by an historian regarding John Lennon. The requester alleged that the FBI is withholding the information for political reasons. The court ordered the government to make an in camera (to the judge alone) showing as to why documents were withheld. On February 29, 1988, Judge Takasugi granted the Government's motion for summary judgment, following a private meeting with government counsel. No reasons were offered for the ruling. We filed an appeal. The Ninth Circuit ruled on July 12, 1991, in favor of Wiener, requiring the FBI and CIA to particularize their claims for exemptions. The decision skeptically regards the agencies' claims to exemption based on national security, holding for the first time that the claim should not work an automatic denial under the statute. The opinion also denied the agencies' claims for exemptions citing confidential informants. The case has been returned to the District Court for the FBI to seek to further substantiate its claims for exemptions from disclosure. The court granted our motion over FBI objection to conduct discovery in the case. A series of depositions were taken in December 1992 and February 1993. On April 26, 1993, a motion was filed by Appellant asking the Court to refrain from issuing a briefing schedule and calendaring the case for oral argument in light of pending proceedings in the Central District that may moot this appeal. Upon request by the District Court in Los Angeles, both sides have submitted briefing relating to the scope of discovery to which plaintiffs are entitled. The district court entered an order permitting the reopening of discovery.

The parties filed a settlement agreement with the court on September 3, 1997. Under the terms of the agreement, the FBI will release additional portions of withheld documents pursuant to Exemption 7. Plaintiff will release the government from challenges to other documents withheld pursuant to Exemptions 3 and 7. The government will pay $204,000 in attorneys fees. There is one remaining issue of the propriety of the government's assertion of a National Security Exemption (Exemption 1) to approximately 12 documents.

The FBI filed a motion for summary judgment in March 1998. The ACLU moved to reopen discovery because the FBI has introduced two new bases to justify withholding in its motion for summary judgment. The court granted the motion. We requested documents from the FBI and held a deposition in Washington, D.C. in June 1999. A motion to compel responses objected to was filed in October, 1999. The FBI then moved to stay the case in light of the Supreme Court's grant of certiorari in another FOIA case raising some similar issues. The stay was lifted after the case in front of the Supreme Court was vacated as moot. In January, 2000, plaintiff announced that two confidential sources for government agencies that spied on Lennon changed sides and advocate opening the secret files: Julie Maynard, an FBI confidential informant who spied on Lennon in the early 1970s, and David Shayler, who worked for the British MI5.

On February 17, 2000, a hearing was held before a magistrate judge on additional discovery requests made by the ACLU. The magistrate judge granted plaintiff's motion to compel production of the written discovery plaintiff was seeking but denied it with respect to plaintiff's motion to compel responses to deposition questions. The government appealed part of the magistrate's order to the district court and plaintiff appealed the other part of the order. In March, 2001, the District Court judge ruled against the plaintiff and for the defendant on the appeals. (Mark Rosenbaum, Peter Eliasberg, Dan Marmalefsky)

Public Policy Department ACLU of Southern California 1616 Beverly Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90026 213.977.9500 www.aclu-sc.org

Another Ruling by this judge
He failed to rule under the "Three Strikes and you go to Jail for Life.". Instead he ruled that this muliple violent felon be given some months of Jail time with parole for good behavoir. His ruling was over turned by the 9th Circuit of Appeals that stated that the MANDITORY LIFE SENTENCE for the Three-Strikes RUle must be maintained.

April 3, 2000

POST OFFICE ROBBER SENTENCED TO LIFE IN PRISON UNDER FEDERAL THREE-STRIKES LAW

A 49-year-old Los Angeles resident was sentenced today to life in federal prison pursuant to the federal “three-strikes” law, United States Attorney Alejandro N. Mayorkas announced.

Perry Scott Stevens becomes only the second person in the nation's largest federal judicial district to receive a life sentence under the federal three strikes statute, 18 U.S.C. § 3559(c), which mandates a life sentence for defendants with two or more prior serious violent felony convictions.

Stevens pleaded guilty in the February 16, 1996 armed robbery of a post office in Lynwood and in the March 20, 1996 attempted armed robbery of a post office in Long Beach. Stevens pleaded guilty before United States District Judge Robert M. Takasugi on October 22, 1997.

Judge Takasugi sentenced Stevens today, finding that the defendant had previously suffered three serious violent felony convictions -- or strikes. The prior convictions included a 1976 robbery that included the use a firearm; a 1979 rape, oral copulation and robbery with the use of a razor; and a 1988 robbery that also involved a firearm. According to Assistant United States Attorney Ray Jurado, Stevens has a 26-year history of criminal convictions. Since March 1977, Stevens has been incarcerated for all but nine months, Jurado added.

In issuing the life sentenced today, Judge Takasugi noted that Stevens committed the robbery and the attempted robbery of the post offices within six months of being released into the community on parole for his prior 1988 conviction. Judge Takasugi further stated that after committing the post office robberies, the defendant fled to Missouri where he was convicted of committing two additional armed robberies. Those crimes, which were committed in St. Louis in December 1996, led to a sentence of 20 years. (Judge Takasugi ordered that the Stevens' life sentence be served concurrent to his 20-year Missouri sentence.)

Stevens was first sentenced in this case on March 19, 1998. At that time, Judge Takasugi sentenced Stevens to 188 months in prison. The United States Attorney’s Office appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which on October 27, 1999 remanded the case to the District Court for imposition of the mandatory life sentence.

“We are gratified this violent offender can no longer terrorize and intimidate innocent victims, including postal employees,” said Acting Inspector in Charge Kathleen Roberts of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. “The federal three-strikes sentencing law has ensured Mr. Stevens will be imprisoned for the remainder of his life.”

This case was investigated by the United States Postal Inspection Service.

The first life sentence in this district under the federal three-strikes statute was given in December to an Inglewood man who participated in the armed, takeover-style robbery of an Orange County bank that netted the participants only $588. Tran Damone Monroe, 30, was sentenced by United States District Judge Alicemarie H. Stotler in Santa Ana after he pleaded guilty to robbing the Tustin bank.

Release No. 00-066

The Honorable Judge Robert M. Takasugi

Jackie Robinson, the Brooklyn Dodger great who helped integrate our country through baseball, said that "the right of every American to first-class citizenship is the most important issue of our time." No person has taken this issue to heart more than our hero, mentor and friend, the Honorable Robert M. Takasugi.

At the age of twelve, Robert M. Takasugi was among the 130,000 residents of Japanese descent who were interned in concentration camps throughout the western United States.

Describing the ordeal as "an education to be fair" and one of many challenges he faced, Takasugi received a degree from UCLA and joined the US Army. His commitment to equal justice brought him to law school, where Takasugi graduated in the top 5% of his class at USC and took to the streets of East Los Angeles, representing many of the sixties' civil rights protestors.

After serving on the Municipal and Superior Courts of Los Angeles, Judge Takasugi became the first Japanese American appointed to the federal bench in 1976.

As both a district court judge for a quarter century and an invitee of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Takasugi's work has consistently been marked by a high degree of integrity and a commitment to equal access to justice.

Judge Takasugi has authored important opinions and has been involved with ground breaking cases such as: Bouman v. Pitchess (court trial finding discrimination against female sheriffs in sergeant promotional exam); Lyons v. City of Los Angeles (issuing a preliminary injunction against LAPD for its use of choke holds); Colorado River Indian Tribes v. Marsh (environmental protection action by Native Americans against federal and state governments); Asian American Business Group v. City of Pomona (finding unconstitutional the city 's ordinance requiring all business signs be partially in English); People for Community Empowerment v. City of Long Beach (questioning the constitutionality of the city's public-gathering permit process); Weiner v. FBI (releasing FBI documents under FOIA related to the politically motivated surveillance of John Lennon); Gonzales v. McEuen (due process for high school students facing expulsion); and US v. Delorean (high profile criminal drug case against auto maker including allegations of evidence held by publisher Larry Flynt).

But perhaps Judge Takasugi's greatest contributions have come outside the courtroom, as a teacher, mentor and role model to thousands of law students and attorneys.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

This judge is a "real Work of Art": He seems to have a history of supporting :Illegal Aliens.Smuggling Rings.Immigration Violations.And Terror related Activities. This was from an archived Google Cache...

Trial of seven Ukrainians accused of immigrant smuggling starts