LEWISTON — Maine’s highest court rejected arguments that the judge erred when he presided last year over the trial of a local couple who own the city’s first halal market and convicted them of welfare fraud.
In upholding Androscoggin County Superior Court Active-Retired Justice Robert Clifford’s lower court rulings, Maine Supreme Judicial Court Justice Donald Alexander wrote for the court in its Tuesday decision: “We discern no error or abuse of discretion by the trial court, and we affirm the judgments.”
Attorneys for the couple appeared before the Supreme Court in Portland last month seeking a new trial, claiming Clifford mistakenly allowed into evidence certain business forms that contained the couple’s financial information. The forms had been prepared by a property management company and were used by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as well as state authorities to determine the couple’s eligibility for housing assistance or Section 8 housing.
Attorney Peter Rodway, who represented Ali-Nassir H. Ahmed at trial, had argued that the forms didn’t qualify under a rule exception that allows business records at trial that would otherwise be considered hearsay. He said Clifford shouldn’t have allowed those records to be presented at trial because prosecutors didn’t provide sufficient foundation for their admission.
Attorney Bruce Merrill, who represented Roda O. Abdi at trial, said information on the forms was missing and that signatures didn’t match, making them untrustworthy to be admitted into evidence at trial.
Assistant Attorney General Leanne Robbin countered that Clifford had ruled properly, pointing out that a representative from the agency that oversaw the forms testified at trial, vouching for the trustworthiness and reliability of the forms and the information they contained.
Abdi and Ahmed were convicted in Androscoggin County Superior Court in Auburn of theft by deception of federal housing-assistance benefits at a joint, jury-waived trial.
The couple was sentenced to a total of 19 months in jail for bilking the federal government out of more than $46,000 in housing subsidies. Clifford ordered them to pay $46,493 in restitution to the Maine State Housing Authority.
Abdi was sentenced to four years in prison with all but 10 months suspended; Ahmed received four years with all but nine months suspended. Both are to spend three years on probation once they’ve served their prison time.
Their sentences had been stayed pending the outcome of their appeals to the high court.
According to the high court’s opinion, while living in their subsidized apartment, Abdi and Ahmed acquired two properties and paid off mortgages totaling $266,000 on those properties. As a result of one of these real estate purchases, Ahmed became a Section 8 housing landlord and received Section 8 housing assistance payments for qualifying tenants in the property.
cwilliams@sunmediagroup.net
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