District Director for California State Senator Carol Liu (21st District) Served in...

District Director for California State Senator Carol Liu (21st District)
Served in a Federal Fraud and Racketeering Lawsuit

WASHINGTON, June 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The District Director for
California State Senator Carol Liu (D-La Canada) was served last week in a
federal fraud and racketeering lawsuit. Tahra Goraya was served on Wednesday,
June 10th while at work at the state senator's Glendale office serving the
21st District.

Goraya served as "national director" of the Council on American-Islamic
Relations at the time of the alleged fraudulent scheme perpetrated by CAIR and
its national leadership in Washington, D.C.

According to the complaint filed by former CAIR clients in November 2008,
Goraya was directly involved in the fraud and cover-up. Goraya apparently
resigned from CAIR sometime after the fraudulent scheme was fully underway and
moved back to her home state of California. There she took a job as District
Director for California State Senator Carol Liu. Goraya was served with the
summons and complaint at Senator Liu's Glendale offices. She has until June
30th to file her response with the court.

The federal racketeering (or RICO) lawsuit was filed November 18, 2008 in the
United States District Court for the District of Columbia by four former CAIR
clients. The complaint alleges criminal fraud and racketeering against CAIR, a
self-described Muslim public interest civil rights law firm. The lawsuit also
names CAIR's national leadership, including Goraya, as individual defendants.

The lawsuit alleges that Morris Days, who served as the "Resident Attorney"
and "Manager for Civil Rights" at the now defunct CAIR chapter in Herndon,
Virginia, was in fact not an attorney and that he defrauded hundreds of CAIR
clients by failing to provide legal services for which they had paid.

While attorney David Yerushalmi represents the four plaintiffs in this
particular lawsuit, two of whom are African American Muslims, the complaint
alleges that according to CAIR internal documents, there are hundreds of
victims of the CAIR-Days fraud scheme.

According to the complaint, CAIR failed to conduct a background check on Days
prior to hiring him and when they did discover his massive fraud, rather than
inform their clients and authorities, they immediately set about to conspire
with Days to continue the fraud and to cover it up. CAIR officials
purposefully concealed the truth about Days from their clients, law
enforcement, the Virginia and D.C. state bar associations, and the media. When
CAIR began fielding irate calls from clients about Days' failure to provide
competent legal services, CAIR fraudulently deceived their clients about Days'
relationship to CAIR, suggesting he was never actually employed by CAIR, and
even concealed the fact that CAIR finally fired him for criminal fraud.

"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 was quoted at the time of the filing 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 which led to
multiple convictions, including at least one CAIR founding member and senior
executive.

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

"According to the facts as carefully laid out in this complaint," Yerushalmi
explained. "CAIR has engaged in a massive cover-up of a criminal fraud in
which literally hundreds of CAIR clients have been victimized and because of
the CAIR cover-up they still don't realize it. The fact that CAIR has
victimized Muslims and non-Muslims alike demonstrates that CAIR is only
looking out for CAIR and its ongoing effort to bilk donors out of millions of
dollars of charitable donations thinking they are supporting a legitimate
organization."

After serving all of the defendants except Morris Days and Tahra Goraya, the
plaintiffs learned that Days had died from lung ailments and Goraya had left
for California. Because the 120-day time limit to serve the summons and
complaint was nearing, the court granted the plaintiffs more time to serve
Goraya and this was accomplished last week.

Goraya is the director of the 21st District office of Senator Liu, which
serves Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena, La Canada Flintridge, San Gabriel, Temple
City, and the Los Angeles communities of Tarzana, Encino, Reseda, Van Nuys,
Sherman Oaks, Studio City, North Hollywood, Silverlake, Los Feliz, Eagle Rock,
Echo Park, Atwater Village, and Chinatown.

The CAIR defendants have filed a perfunctory motion to dismiss, which the
parties fully briefed and submitted to the court in mid-March of this year.
Mr. Yerushalmi said he expects the court's ruling at any time. When asked
about next steps, Mr. Yerushalmi said: "We are fully confident
the court will deny the CAIR defendants' motion and allow discovery to
proceed. We are eager to begin examining CAIR's internal documents and taking
testimony. In the meantime, we have heard from additional former CAIR clients
and victims and expect to either call them as witnesses or include them as
additional plaintiffs."

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.

This enforced code of silence left hundreds of CAIR client-victims in the dark
such that to this day they have not learned that Days is not an attorney and
that he had not filed the legal actions on their behalf for which Days and
CAIR publicly claimed credit.

The complaint identifies CAIR as a racketeering enterprise under the federal
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), which is a criminal
racketeering statute that allows victims to sue the defendants in civil court.
In addition to damages, the plaintiffs are seeking injunctive relief under
this and other statutes to shut down CAIR and to prevent the individual
defendants from engaging in public interest legal work in the future.

The named defendants are: the Council on American-Islamic Relations Action
Network Inc. (dba CAIR); Nihad Awad aka Nihad Hammad who serves as executive
director of CAIR National; Parvez Ahmed who was the chairman of the board of
CAIR National during the relevant time period; Tahra Goraya who was the
national director of CAIR but who has since resigned; Khadijah Athman who is
the manager of the "civil rights" division of CAIR; and Nadhira al- Khalili,
Esq., who is in-house legal counsel for CAIR.

According to the complaint, CAIR's in-house Washington, D.C.-based attorney
Khalili was directly involved in taking the legal files out of the CAIR
Virginia office and concealing them in the D.C. office.

Also named as defendants are Ibrahim Hooper and Amina Rubin, CAIR's director
of communications and coordinator of communications, respectively. According
to the complaint, these two were directly responsible for issuing fraudulent
press releases about the Days fraud scheme, thus aiding and abetting the CAIR
cover-up.

About David Yerushalmi, Esq.
David Yerushalmi has been practicing law for 25 years. He is a litigator
specializing in securities law, public policy relating to national security,
and public interest law. Mr. Yerushalmi is licensed and practices in
Washington D.C., New York, California, and Arizona.

SOURCE David Yerushalmi, Esq.

David Yerushalmi, Esq. of the Law Offices of David Yerushalmi, P.C.,
+1-646-262-0500, Fax: +1-801-760-3901, YerushalmiLaw@verizon.net