Claims by a former Gregg County Jail inmate that his Islamic faith was violated have been settled locally and await a Dec. 29 announcement he has settled his dispute with two federal agencies — but the settlement will not cost Gregg County.
A federal judge will have to sign off on any pending deal before it is official.
Mohammad Moosa Yahya sued Gregg County, Sheriff Maxey Cerliano, six of his deputies and two federal law enforcement agencies in March. He claimed in the federal lawsuit that he was denied meal accommodations during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which that year coincided with his stint in the Gregg County Jail in the summer of 2014.
Yahya, 38 at the time, was held for federal agents on a fraud charge for which he was sentenced to 24 months in prison last spring.
He had been accused of soliciting investors in a car-buying business, called Tyler Automax, then depositing the money into a personal bank account from which he freely spent.
He stated in the federal lawsuit that his repeated requests that meals be delivered during nondaylight hours during Ramadan were ignored. Muslims fast during daylight during Ramadan, a 30-day span of prayer and helping people less fortunate.
Yahya sought unspecified punitive damages and for a court order demanding accommodation to religious beliefs.
Information released by the county last summer indicated his breakfasts were shifted to 5 a.m. and that his midday meal was switched to a sack lunch that would keep until the sun set and he could eat it.
Federal filings show the U.S. Marshals Service and the U.S. Department of Justice have until Dec. 29 to negotiate a settlement with Yahya.
Meanwhile, attorneys representing Yahya and the Gregg County defendants concluded negotiations in August. Robert Davis, representing the county, and Charlie Swift with the Constitutional Law Center for Muslims in America, released a statement on the unsigned settlement Wednesday.
“While Mr. Yahya was not provided an accommodation during at least a portion of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the failure to accommodate Mr. Yahya was a result of a miscommunication rather than a result of any intentional deprivation,” the statement reads in part. “The parties agree that Sheriff Cerliano is personally fully supportive of accommodating the religious beliefs of any person incarcerated at the Gregg County Jail.”
The statement continues to say a revision of the county’s Jail Inmate Religious Practices Plan awaits approval of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards "... to ensure that prisoners and staff alike are aware of how to request religious accommodations.”
“It was a miscommunication,” Davis said Wednesday. “The miscommunication is just that forms did not go to the right place.”
Yahya, meanwhile, is in a federal prison in Beaumont. He is scheduled for release Dec. 24, and a $455,000 fine was waved off by authorities.
A spokeswoman for the federal courts system could not immediately say why Yahya’s 24-month term ends in December.