AUBURN — A Lewiston father of five American children pleaded guilty to welfare fraud-related charges in an effort to avoid deportation and remain with his family when he gets out of prison.
Abdi Hassan, 48, of 69 Lincoln St. was charged in 2013 with 15 counts including felony theft, forgery and negotiating a worthless instrument.
Last week, Hassan agreed to plead guilty to three new charges: one count of theft by deception and two counts of disorderly conduct, all misdemeanors for which he was sentenced to two years months in prison.
In doing so, Hassan is unlikely to face deportation after serving his sentence because the crimes are not felonies and do not involve moral turpitude, his lawyer, James Howaniec, said Monday.
The theft charge to which Hassan admitted stems from his taking more than $500 from state and federally funded welfare programs Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP (formerly known as Food Stamps) as well as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, or TANF and/or the Additional Support for People in Retraining and Employment Program, or ASPIRE, between 2004 and 2013, by intending to give the impression that he was not living with the mother of his children, that the children he was babysitting were not his biological children, that he had no assets and that his only income was from his job at a private business.
Two counts of disorderly conduct state that from 2004 to 2010 and again between 2010 and 2013, Hassan knowingly accosted, insulted, taunted or challenged a person with offensive, derisive or annoying words that did in fact have a tendency to cause a violent response by an ordinary person in that situation in a public place.
He was sentenced to a year on the theft charge and six months apiece on each of the disorderly charges.
Hassan’s case had been set to go to trial last year, but, at the last minute, was scuttled when the trial judge threw out all of the charges against Hassan after prosecutors revealed that some clerks at the Department of Health and Human Services may have forged Hassan’s name in documents.
Prosecutors at the Maine Attorney General’s Office appealed that judges order to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, which overturned the lower court ruling citing judicial error, sending the case back to Maine Superior Court for trial.
The plea agreement was reached immediately following a settlement conference among attorneys for both sides and a judge.
He is expected to begin serving his sentence at the end of September. Until then, he will remain free on his own personal recognizance.
Restitution of $75,756 to DHHS is scheduled for repayment at $25 per month after Hassan has served his sentence and is release from prison.
Prosecutors dropped the original charges against Hassan.
Howaniec said Monday the plea agreement included two major components sought by the defense. It avoids deportation and defrays restitution to an affordable amount.
“We could have fought it,” he said of the case. “And we could have prevailed on some of the counts.”
Before the charges against Hassan were dismissed by Judge Susan Oram last year, the mother of his five children, Amina Ege, 46, of 105 Shawmut St., Lewiston, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges in connection with Hassan’s case just three days before their trial was scheduled to begin. Her sentencing date has not been scheduled.
cwilliams@sunjournal.com
Abdi Hassan
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