Ex-Mayo Clinic employee charged with attempting to provide ISIS support
A former medical coordinator for Mayo Clinic was arrested at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Thursday while trying to get to Syria to fight “on the front line” of ISIS.
The FBI arrested 28-year-old Muhammad Masood after he checked in for his flight to Los Angeles. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota has charged Masood with attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, including wanting to serve as a fighter and combat medic and talking of his desire to enact a lone wolf-style attack. Masood made his first appearance in court Thursday.
Masood is a licensed medical doctor in Pakistan working in the United States on an H-1B Visa for the past two years in the Mayo Clinic Department of Cardiovascular Diseases. In a statement Thursday, Mayo Clinic communications manager Ginger Plumbo said that Masood was not a Mayo Clinic employee at the time of his arrest. It is unclear when his employment ended.
From January to March, Masood made several statements pledging his allegiance to ISIS and its leader, according to charges.
“i want to fight on the front line as well as help the wounded brothers,” he said over an encrypted social media app to confidential informant sources, according to charges. “as i doctor i want to help mujahedeen [sic] on the ground,” he wrote. According to charges, “mujahedeen” refers to those engaged in jihad.
On Feb. 19, Masood traveled to Bloomington to meet with a confidential informant he believed would help him join ISIS. They met in the parking lot of a shopping mall and drove to a nearby hotel. They patched in another informant via video conference, who Masood believed to be an overseas commander vetting him.
Left out of the Star Tribune story is this line from an AP story:
He explained that he wanted to make the trip because he “hates smiling at the passing kuffar just to not make them suspicios.” The affidavit said kuffar is an Arabic term meaning nonbeliever or non-Muslim.
Brentwood woman sentenced to 13 years in prison for aiding ISIS
A Brentwood woman was sentenced Friday to 13 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to a charge of providing more than $150,000 in financial support to the ISIS terrorist organization.
Zoobia Shahnaz, 29, was in addition sentenced to 10 years of supervised release by U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert in Central Islip.
Judge Joanna Seybert said when she handed down the stiff sentence that the defendant could have found a “more peaceable” organization to work with if she really wanted to help refugees. BTW, I could not find a photo of Shahnaz so had to settle for the judge.
Shahnaz, a U.S. citizen born in Pakistan and a lab technician at a Manhattan hospital, obtained more than $85,000 of the money through a number of fraud schemes and passed the funds on to ISIS in a further complex manner, according to officials.
She was arrested in July 2017 at Kennedy Airport while attempting to board a flight to Turkey, where she intended to illegally enter Syria to join ISIS, officials have said.
Eastern District federal prosecutor Artie McConnell argued for a stiff sentence saying ISIS could have used that money to create massive destruction and death, noting that terrorist attacks around the world have been perpetrated with devices whose ingredients cost as little as $600.
Defense attorney Steven Zissou said before and after the sentencing that his client’s “only goal was to help the suffering of Syrian refugees,” after she had witnessed the carnage in Syria at refugee camps where she had volunteered.
Zissou said the average sentence of someone in his client’s position had been 11 years, with as little 4 years.
Seybert said she was leery of imposing a low sentence, saying that Shahnaz was a highly intelligent person who implemented a complex scheme. The judge noted the defendant came from a loving family and could have worked for much more peaceable organizations.
[….]
“Today, the defendant learned the consequences of seeking to join ISIS and funneling thousands of dollars into the terrorist organization’s coffers,” stated Eastern District U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue. “There is no higher priority of the Department of Justice and this Office than protecting our country from those who support violent, hate-filled terrorist organizations.”
Because I know you need a little diversion from the virus crisis, I figured you would get a little chuckle about the latest in the marital soap opera that seems to be Rep. Ilhan Omar’s way of life.
In their dating days: Mynett with no beard.
[Readers: Every time I write about Omar I struggle with the decision to post about her at Refugee Resettlement Watch since she is one of the more than a hundred thousand of her countrymen that we have admitted to the US over the last several decades, or should I post here at ‘Frauds and Crooks.’ ‘Frauds and Crooks’ it is!]
The most thorough coverage of the life and times of Omar is at the UK Daily Mailwhich seems to have a photographer on her tail much of the time!
Congresswoman Ilhan Omar reveals she is MARRIED to her chief fundraiser lover after they were spotted together wearing wedding rings
Leftist congresswoman Ilhan Omar has married her fundraising chief, she has announced.
Her wedding to Tim Mynett happened earlier this week, DailyMail.com understands.
Mynett now sporting beard. Did he convert to Islam?
She announced the wedding in an Instagram post, which was accompanied by the couple in a romantic pose. The couple, both of whom divorced their previous spouses late last year, tied the knot at an undisclosed location.
From partners in politics to life partners. So blessed,’ the Minnesota congresswoman wrote on her Instagram account under the black and white photograph.
The couple were wearing the same rings that DailyMail.com pictured them wearing in Washington, D.C. last week.
Both Omar, 37 and Mynett — whose company received more than $500,000 last year from her campaign — initially denied they were having an affair.
But sources in the Somali community in Minneapolis say she was forced into announcing the nuptials because of articles on DailyMail.com.
Go here to see the long story with lots of pics at the Daily Mail!
See my Ilhan Omar archivehere at ‘Frauds and Crooks.‘
NumbersUSAalerted its members last week to a new system at the USCIS for citizens to report fraud. Thanks to reader Michael for telling me about it.
USCIS Launches New Online Form for Reporting Fraud
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has launched a new online tip form to help the public provide the agency with information about immigration fraud. The new online form, available on the USCIS public website, prompts the user for the information that the USCIS’ fraud investigators need to investigate allegations of immigration benefit fraud or abuse.
See that USCIS had previously provided e-mail addresses to report fraud, but will be phasing those out.
The new online tip form collects information related to the relevant fraud, identifies the type of benefit in question and provides space for the user to describe the alleged fraud or abuse in additional detail.
This online form streamlines fraud reporting by replacing three email boxes USCIS now uses for fraud and abuse reporting. The tip form will make the tip process more effective and efficient. Every day, well-intentioned people try to report immigration fraud or abuse to USCIS, but our USCIS’s internal procedures did not allow for a consistent and timely way to respond.
The woman sentenced to nearly six years behind bars is from Jordan—another ‘new American’ who comes from a culture where this sort of treatment of people of lesser stature is accepted?
N.J. woman who forced Sri Lankan woman to work as nanny, housekeeper for no pay is sentenced to nearly 6 years in prison
A federal judge in Camden on Tuesday sentenced a North Jersey woman to 5 years and 10 months in federal prison for forcing a Sri Lankan woman to work as a nanny and housekeeper in her homes for almost a decade without pay.
Alia Imad Faleh Al Hunaity, a.k.a. Alia Al Qaternah, 44, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Jordan, had brought the victim, a Sri Lankan national, to the United States on a temporary visa in 2009 to perform domestic work. Hunaity caused the victim to overstay her visa and remain in the United States illegally for more than nine years, federal prosecutors have said.
Hunaity, a cancer research scientist, was convicted by a federal jury in Camden in May on charges of forced labor, alien harboring for financial gain, and marriage fraud. She had forced the victim to cook and clean her homes in Woodland Park and Secaucus and to care for her three children, all without pay, prosecutors have said.
In 2018, Hunaity forced the woman — who was not identified in court — to marry her so that the woman could obtain legal residence and continue to work for her, authorities have said.
Hunaity also “forced the victim into a sham marriage” with Hunaity that brought the victim shame, Kugler said.
Hunaity, who worked in New York, has not been in custody. She was ordered to surrender at a date to be determined by the Bureau of Prisons and to pay the woman $1.2 million in restitution. In addition, the judge sentenced Hunaity to three years’ supervised release after the prison term.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services