CAIR is a Muslim organization previously named as a Muslim Brotherhood-Hamas front group by the FBI and the 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.
Five former clients of CAIR had earlier filed two separate lawsuits in federal court alleging common law and statutory fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and intentional infliction of emotional distress against CAIR, a self-described Muslim public interest civil rights law firm. These two lawsuits follow an earlier lawsuit which had also 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.
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.
Both lawsuits arise out of the same facts and as a result the court has consolidated the two cases.
The lawsuits allege 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 and that he failed to provide legal services for clients who came to CAIR for legal representation. As alleged, CAIR knew of this fraud and purposefully conspired with Days to keep the CAIR clients from discovering that their legal matters were being mishandled or not handled at all.
While attorney David Yerushalmi represents the five plaintiffs in these two lawsuits, three of whom are Muslim Americans, the complaints allege that according to CAIR internal documents, there were hundreds of victims of the CAIR fraud scheme.
According to the complaints, CAIR knew or should have known that Days was not a lawyer when it hired him. But, like many organizations accused of wrongdoing, 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.
To this end, CAIR officials purposefully concealed the truth about Days from their clients, law enforcement, the Virginia and D.C. state bar assoiations, and the media. When CAIR did get 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 had fired him once some of the victims began threatening to sue.
“The evidence has long suggested that CAIR is an 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 had been named by the federal government as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror financing trial.
In addition, several of CAIR’s top executives have been convicted of terror-related crimes. As a result, the FBI has publicly announced that it has terminated any outreach activities with the national organization, which bills itself as “America’s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization.”
“According to the facts as carefully laid out in both complaints,” Yerushalmi explained, “CAIR has engaged in a massive 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.”
The complaint also alleges that in addition to covering up the fraud scheme, CAIR 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 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’s victims in the dark such that to this day they have not learned that Days was not an attorney and that he had not filed the legal actions on their behalf for which CAIR publicly claimed credit. Days has since died of a lung complication.
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 the Islamic Conference (OIC).”
Mr. Yerushalmi concluded, “Why this organization is allowed to exist as a non-profit, tax-exempt organization at all is mind-boggling.”
CASE UPDATE (December 4, 2012): Noting that America has a “strong tradition of access to judicial proceedings”, Federal Judge Paul Friedman issued an opinion and order granting the Law Offices of David Yerushalmi, P.C., and AFLC ‘s request that CAIR file their motion for summary judgment and associated exhibits on the public record — as opposed to their previously filed motion papers, which were filed needlessly under seal. (Some items that CAIR will file, such as employee medical information, will remain confidential.) Read the judge’s order here. This is an important ruling in our efforts to expose CAIR as a fraudulent, Hamas-backed apparatus.
CASE UPDATE (August 14, 2015): We filed our opening brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
CASE UPDATE: The D.C. Circuit ruled in our favor, sending the case back to the district court for trial. We are awaiting a trial date.
Plaintiff's Reply in Support of Motion for Summary Judgment