AUBURN — An investigator at a state agency testified Thursday that a couple accused of housing fraud earned nearly $400,000 at their store over a five-year period at the same time their apartment rental was being subsidized.
Prosecutors rested their case against Roda Abdi and Ali-Nassir Ahmed of Lewiston on the third day of their bench trial in Androscoggin County Superior Court.
The final witness, Russell Veysey, an investigator at Maine Revenue Services, examined the bank records for A & R Halal Market at 199 Bartlett St. in Lewiston, a store the couple owned.
The couple is charged with felony theft punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Prosecutors said they misrepresented their income and assets in an effort to get U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development money to help pay their rent. The Androscoggin County grand jury indictment focuses on their actions from July 2006 to May 31, 2008. Prosecutors claim the couple wrongly accepted roughly $20,000 in rental subsidies during that period.
Veysey said his estimate of the store’s net earnings were conservative.
Assistant Attorney General Leanne Robbin called four other witnesses Thursday. One testified that Abdi had sought reimbursement for vouchers from the Maine Women, Infants and Children Nutrition Program, or WIC, claiming the bank had lost them. Abdi had copies of the actual vouchers that had been seized by federal agents during a 2010 raid on the market, the witness said.
Abdi was also charged with attempted theft by deception, a misdemeanor punishable by up to 364 days in jail.
Veysey’s testimony ended at 4 p.m. Thursday, leaving lawyers for the two defendants no time to present their cases. The case will be continued, Active Retired Justice Robert Clifford said.
Defense attorneys poked holes in the state’s case, pointing out missing signatures on documents and erroneous dates. During cross-examination, witnesses sometimes couldn’t decipher terms or figures in documents they oversaw.
Defense attorneys also noted that HUD eligibility guidelines allowed subsidy recipients to have incomes in the tens of thousands of dollars.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
