Defendants Ahmed Haji Abdullah and Fadhil Hussain Noroly were charged with theft of U.S. property under 18 USC 641, which provides:

I want to be more precise, and correct the above. As reflected by the Docket, Defendants Ahmed Haji Abdullah and Fadhil Hussain Noroly were charged violation of U.S. property under 18 USC 641. I see the offense also includes receiving, retaining or concealing such property with the intent to convert same, and knowing that it had "embezzled, stolen, purloined or converted."

Average Joe said:

How does the law regarding illegal money transfer compare with the laws regarding counterfeit currency? I seem to dimly recall that passing counterfeit currency was illegal, "regardless of knowledge or intent", but I could be wrong.

I think you are wrong. I haven't looked it up, but I'm confident that the crime of passing counterfeit currency is not what lawyers call a "strict liability" offense -- i.e., one where doing the prohibited act is sufficient for conviction regardless of one's knowledge or state of mind. It can't be the case that if I go to the bank, cash my paycheck, get a $100 bill, go to the store and use it to buy food, only to discover to my shock and surprise that the bill was counterfeit that I'm guilty of a crime.

The critical distinction is between ignorance of the law versus ignorance of the facts. It very, very rarely that ignorance of the law is a defense. That is what is going on with the money transfer cases. Almost always (there are rare exceptions) saying, "yes, I did it, but I didn't know it was illegal" is not a defense. The old saying that goes with this is that "every man is presumed to know the law."

On the other hand, ignorance of a relevant fact, e.g., that the money was counterfeit, is frequently a defense.

I think it should be noted here that the defendents were running an international money transferring business. It is not unusual for businesses to be held to a higher standard in regard to record keeping, meeting regulatory requirements and following the law in general than people engaged in managing their own affairs.

I think one of the reasons this case is getting attention is because there have been so few actual patriot act abuses, that there are some that are hoping they've actually found one in this case. Barkey Rosser started out his awareness campaign by calling the FBI "Gastapo", I think that indicates more what he was hoping to find than what actually happened.

First, I would like to thank Eugene Volokh for providing a link to the followup on this story so that any who wish to can pursue the matter further, even if I am not in full agreement with all his interpretations of the situation. However, I would like to respond to a couple of the remarks made above.

Charles Chapman

I think the "embezzling" et al refers to the charge made that HUD funds were taken. These are completely false charges, based on initial mistranslation of a ledger. However, this is a matter I have been told should not be discussed further at this time. No one is disputing that the defendants did transfer money in violation of certain of the Patriot Act statutes.

Kazinksi,

You state that the defendants were "running a money transferring business." Well, that is what they are charged with, but I would note that this was more a charity. They were not making money doing this. It was a matter of doing favors for people in the Harrisonburg Kurdish community, getting money back to their families and a charitable organization (pro-US NGO, not a terrorist group) back in Iraqi Kurdistan. These people were approached as leaders in the community to do this. Qambari did many favors for many people for no pay, including serving as a translator for the courts, and I have been told that he did translating (for free) at the local hospital over 500 times.

They did keep records. That is not what they are charged with, lack of records. However, the feds did fail to accurately translate their records, thus leading to this false charge about HUD monies.

I have long ago agreed that the term "gestapo" was unwise to use, although it was inspired by tactics especially involved in the arrest. These tactics were not discussed in the latest column that is posted up. However, a letter that appeared in the local paper two days later used the term "gestapo-like" again in conjunction particularly with the arrest tactics. I did not initiate the use of the term, and borrowed it from the first pamphlet that was circulated by local supporters of the arrested men. I fully agree it is excessive, but then the tactics used were excessive.

As I noted in my most recent post on Maxspeak, this whole operation, the Terrorism Task Force that initiated the investigation, and the overeager US attorney involved, came out of Roanoke, VA. I think these people have too little to do. Harrisonburg is the only place with any noticeable middle easterners around. So, even though most of them are a bunch of pro-US Kurdish refugees, they went after them. This is very clear in that the community was subject to intensive investigation about their links with Saddam Hussein (who killed members of most of their families while they were in Iraq) and Osama bin Laden right after 9/11. Then they were gone after over this money transfer business. Why not just tell them to stop it, given it was clear none of this had anything to do with terrorism? This whole thing is like Abe Lincoln detailing security people to go after runaway slaves in the north in the Civil War about their links with Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, and confederate guerrilla commander, John Singleton Mosby.