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FP: David Yerushalmi, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Yerushalmi: Hi, Jamie. Nice to be talking with you.
FP: It appears that CAIR is in quite a bit of trouble lately. Give us an update.
Yerushalmi: Four of my clients, who were all once clients of CAIR, have filed a federal civil complaint alleging criminal fraud and racketeering against CAIR.
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, arises out of what we can call the Morris Days affair. CAIR's Herndon office, now shuttered, had hired Morris Days in June 2006 as their "Resident Attorney" and "Manager for Civil Rights". As it turns out, Days was in fact not an attorney as he and CAIR represented to the public and as one might expect, he did not provide the legal services for those clients who came to CAIR for assistance.
What many people don't realize is that CAIR operates and presents itself as a public interest law firm, much like the ACLU. As a PILF, it must comply with the codes of professional responsibility applicable to lawyers in the jurisdictions in which it operates and keep sacred the fiduciary duty it owes its clients. As the complaint sets out in careful detail, CAIR trampled on its clients and disregarded its professional obligations with a callous and calculating malice.
Specifically, according to the complaint we have filed on behalf of our clients, CAIR failed to conduct a background check on Days prior to hiring him and when CAIR officials did discover his massive fraud, they immediately set about to cover it up. CAIR officials purposefully concealed the truth about Days from their clients, law enforcement, the Virginia and D.C. state bar associations, and the media.
The complaint identifies CAIR as a racketeering enterprise under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), which is a criminal racketeering statute that allows victims to sue the defendants in civil court. In addition to damages, my clients are seeking injunctive relief under this and other statutes to shut down CAIR and to prevent the individual defendants from engaging in public interest legal work in the future.