Judge Rules Terrorist-Linked CAIR Must Face Fraud Charges

A federal judge in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia has denied a motion to dismiss complaints by five former clients of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
 It was almost two years ago (Nov. 2008) that four clients of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) filed a federal civil complaint alleging criminal fraud and racketeering against CAIR, which along with claiming to be a "human rights group," also works as a civil rights law firm. The lawsuit also named CAIR’s national leadership as individual defendants (a second suit making similar claims was added later).


The defendants were served with the complaint and summons to appear while attending the CAIR 14th Annual Dinner Sunday night in Arlington, Virginia. The Congressman from CAIR Keith Ellison (D-Minn) was a guest speaker at this affair.



Those original lawsuits alleged that CAIR’s fraudulent conduct amounted to racketeering, a federal RICO crime. In that case, the court dismissed the RICO counts concluding that CAIR’s conduct as alleged was fraudulent but not a technical violation of RICO. So the suits had to be refiled.

The two new federal civil complaints were filed in the federal district court for the District of Columbia on January 6, 2010, and served on January 13, 2010.  Since both lawsuits arise out of the same facts the court has consolidated the two cases. CAIR filed its motion to dismiss on February 26, 2010 asking federal court judge Paul L. Friedman to dismiss the fraud cases on several grounds, but the judge refused CAIR’s request in its entirety. The Judge did dismiss one redundant claim of consumer fraud based on D.C. law because he allowed the identical claim under Virginia law, ruling that Virginia law applied in the case. For those that want to read the legalese of the dismissal, its can be found here. 

The suit alleges that Morris Days, the “Resident Attorney” and “Manager for Civil Rights” at the now defunct CAIR MD/VA chapter in Herndon, Virginia, was in fact not an attorney (nor did he play one on TV) and that he failed to provide legal services for clients who came to CAIR for assistance and who had paid for CAIR legal services. Attorney David Yerushalmi represents five plaintiffs (three of whom are African American Muslims) but according to the court papers, internal CAIR documents show that there were hundreds of victims of the CAIR-Days fraud scheme.

According to the lawsuit, CAIR knew or should have known that Days was not a lawyer when it hired him. But things got worse when CAIR officials were confronted with clear evidence of Days’ fraudulent conduct. Rather than come clean and attempt to rectify past wrongs, CAIR conspired with Days to conceal and further the fraud.

The complaint charges that CAIR officials purposefully concealed the truth about Days from their clients, law enforcement, the Virginia and D.C. state bar associations, and the media. Once the Muslim-brotherhood linked group got  irate calls from clients about Days, CAIR fraudulently deceived the callers about Days’ relationship to CAIR, suggesting he was never actually employed by CAIR, and even concealed the fact that CAIR had fired him once some of the victims began threatening to sue.

“The evidence has long suggested that CAIR is a criminal organization set up by the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas to further its aims of stealth Jihad in the U.S.,” Mr. Yerushalmi said referring to the fact that CAIR has been named by the federal government as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror financing trial.

“But our investigation and this complaint make clear that CAIR’s criminal activities know no bounds,” Yerushalmi continued.

The complaint also alleges that in addition to covering up the Days fraud scheme, CAIR officials in D.C. forced angry clients who were demanding a return of their legal fees to sign a release that bought the client-victims’ silence by prohibiting them from informing law enforcement or the media about the CAIR-Days fraud. According to the agreement, if the “settling” clients said anything to anyone about the fraud scheme, CAIR would be able to sue them for $25,000. Because of this "omerta"  enforced by the terrorist linked CAIR, hundreds of CAIR’s victims  are still not aware that Days was not an attorney and that he never filed the legal actions on their behalf for which CAIR publicly claimed credit (Days has since died of a lung complication).

CAIR’s motion to dismiss argued that the failure to name Morris Days and CAIR-MD/VA as “indispensable” party-defendants was grounds to dismiss. The court saw through this ruse by noting that Mr. Yerushalmi had pointed out that Days was dead. Insofar as there was no probate of any estate, Days likely died intestate and poor. Similarly, CAIR-MD/VA, as alleged in the complaints, was shuttered and rendered defunct by CAIR to try and cover-up the crime. Unsuccessfully, CAIR’s motion to dismiss had strategically and dishonestly ignored those facts.

Mr. Yerushalmi made clear that “the evidence in this case will finally put to rest the myth that CAIR is a legitimate Muslim American civil rights organization when in fact it is little more than an agent of the Muslim Brotherhood and a recipient of huge donations from operatives of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC).”

Mr. Yerushalmi concluded, “Why this organization is allowed to exist as a non-profit, tax-exempt organization at all is mind-boggling.”

I would add, "Why this criminal enterprise is allowed to appear on news programs as the "spokespeople for the Muslim community is also mind-boggling." CAIR was previously named as a Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas front group by the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office in the federal criminal trial and conviction of a terrorist funding cell organized around one of the largest Muslim charities, the Holy Land Foundation, which raised funds for violent jihad on behalf of Hamas.