Free Republic

Flaming death no accident, FBI says Gasoline found on clothes of license examiner By Bill Dries dries@gomemphis.com The fiery death of a driver's license examiner at the center of a federal fraud investigation was not an accident, an FBI agent said here Wednesday in federal court. Federal and state investigators found gasoline on the clothes Katherine Smith was wearing when she died Sunday in a car crash on a stretch of U.S. 72 in Fayette County, FBI agent J. Suzanne Nash told U.S. Magistrate Judge J. Daniel Breen. Nash also testified that investigators found evidence of some kind of accelerant ...

By Bill Dries, dries@gomemphis.com A Memphis woman allegedly at the center of a scheme to sell fraudulent Tennessee driver's licenses was identified Tuesday as the person whose burned body was found early Sunday in the wreckage of a car in Fayette County. L icense examiner Katherine Smith was probably alive when her car hit a utility pole on U.S. 72 near the Mississippi state line, said Tennessee Highway Patrol Lt. Col. Mark Fagan. Smith, 49, died the day before she was due to appear before a federal magistrate judge for a detention hearing on a charge of conspiracy to obtain ...

<p>EMPHIS - Tennessee expected resistance when it relaxed its requirements for obtaining a driver's license last year. But concerns about proper forms of identification after the Sept. 11 attacks have thrown the state's licensing system into turmoil.</p> <p>Four states - Connecticut, Florida, South Carolina, and Arkansas - have rescinded reciprocity agreements, meaning they will no longer accept Tennessee licenses as a primary form of identification.</p>

The first firefighters at a fiery car wreck Sunday in Fayette County that killed a Memphis driver's license examiner thought it was suspicious even as they put out the flames. Investigators began an immediate search for a device that might have triggered the intense fire, said the chief of the Piperton Fire Department. The fire killed Katherine Smith, the examiner at the center of a federal investigation of an alleged scheme to issue driver's licenses fraudulently to men with Middle Eastern ties. Smith died one day before she was due to appear before a federal magistrate judge for a detention ...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - A driver's license examiner and five others, including three alleged illegal aliens, were charged in a plot to buy phony Tennessee licenses for $1,000 apiece. According to an FBI complaint filed Wednesday, illegal aliens Mohammed Fares, Mostafa Said Abou-Shahin and Abdelmuhsen Mahmid Hammad drove from New York to obtain licenses. The complaint said the trio were met outside a testing center Tuesday by Sakhera Hammad and Khaled Odtllah, alleged middlemen who filled out the necessary paperwork, charging them each $1,000. Testing center examiner Katherine Smith then issued the licenses under the names of Fares and two others, ...

Katherine Smith, a Memphis driver's license examiner who was arrested for selling Tennessee driver's licenses to 5 Middle Eastern men is apparently dead. Ms. Smith's family had not heard from her in two days when they received word that her car had been involved in a fatal one car accident near the Mississippi/Tennesse state line. The victim inside was burnt beyond recognition and the body was transported to the Memphis medical examiners office in an attempt to identify the body. At this point it is assumed that the body is indeed of Katherine Smith.

A woman allegedly at the center of a phony driver's license scheme linked to Middle Eastern men prosecutors say have connections to the World Trade Center disaster has turned up dead. Tennessee license examiner Katherine Smith's burned body was found Sunday in the wreckage of a car that appears to have been torched, say authorities. She was to testify the next day before a federal magistrate judge for a detention hearing on a charge of conspiracy to obtain fraudulent identification documents. Smith and five co-defendants were arrested Feb. 5 after they left a state driver testing station. Prosecutors said ...

Feds fear license examiner is dead Woman's co-defendants tied to 9/11, judge told By Tom Bailey Jr. baileytom@gomemphis.com A missing Tennessee driver's license examiner charged with conspiring to provide licenses fraudulently was probably the victim of a "most unusual and suspicious" death, a federal prosecutor said Monday. Asst. U.S. Atty. Tim Di Scenza also raised the possibility in court that Katherine Smith's five codefendants are involved in terrorism against the United States, citing "connections" to Sept. 11 and the World Trade Center. A defense attorney, however, protested that the only reason the prosecutor raised the issue of terrorism is that ...

A missing Tennessee driver's license examiner charged with conspiring to provide licenses fraudulently was probably the victim of a "most unusual and suspicious" death, a federal prosecutor said Monday. Asst. U.S. Atty. Tim Di Scenza also raised the possibility in court that Katherine Smith's five codefendants are involved in terrorism against the United States, citing "connections" to Sept. 11 and the World Trade Center. A defense attorney, however, protested that the only reason the prosecutor raised the issue of terrorism is that the defendants are from the Middle East. DiScenza told the court that the same car Smith drove when ...

February 15, 2002 F.B.I. Says Arson Killed Woman Accused in License Scheme By REUTERS EMPHIS, Feb. 14 — A deliberately set fire caused the death of a driver's license examiner who had been accused of illegally selling licenses to five Middle Eastern men who were being investigated for possible ties to terrorism, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has said. Gasoline was poured on the clothing of the examiner, Katherine Smith, before she burned to death on Sunday in an automobile accident, J. Suzanne Nash, an F.B.I. agent, said on Wednesday. Ms. Smith died one day before she was to ...

One of five suspects in a drivers license fraud ring was released Thursday after his father agreed to put up property, including his Staten Island home, as bond. Federal prosecutor Tim DiScenza dropped opposition to Sakher A. Hammad's release after his father, Peter Hansen, a civil engineer employed by New York City government, signed the $250,000 bond. But DiScenza fought a bid for bail by co-defendant Khaled Odtllah. U.S. Dist. Judge Bernice Donald is scheduled to rule Monday on that matter. DiScenza also told Donald that the government wants separate trials in rapid succession for the five defendants, with Odtllah,...

Five New York City men with ties to the Middle East were indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday for their part in an alleged scheme to fraudulently obtain Tennessee driver's licenses. In the indictment on one count of conspiracy to commit fraud, federal authorities shed no new light on the death of state license examiner Katherine Smith. Smith and the five men were charged in a Feb. 6 criminal complaint on an identical conspiracy charge. Smith died Feb. 10 in a fiery car crash on U.S. 72 in Fayette County, the day before she was to appear at a ...

A photo ID pass for Sept. 5 found on one of the men charged with fraudulently obtaining a Tennessee driver's license from a Memphis woman gave him access to the six underground levels of the One World Center building. But which tenant hired Sakher 'Rocky' Hammad, 24, to work on its sprinklers is lost, said Port Authority of New York and New Jersey spokesman Alan Hicks on Friday. Hammad told federal authorities that he was working on the sprinklers six days before the twin towers were brought down by terrorists, court testimony revealed this week. But Hicks said the Port ...