It's a funny story, whether or not it's true.
Here is a true story -- my first Afghani client. I knew him from a professional association, and he seemed like an OK guy to me.
He had a very big house, and a large extended family, and his family was (this part is true) important in Afghanistan, but they had to leave, and they were important in the Afghani community here.
I should probably mention here that I contributed money to the mujahideen when they were fighting the Soviets, and this man told me that he and his family had fought the Soviets but had to flee the Taliban, which is probably true, and I like to pride myself on being multicultural, so he sneaked in under my radar.
His neighbors were always complaining to the County Zoning commission that there were too many taxicabs parked outside the house, and he had too many people living in the house and they said he was renting out rooms to unrelated people. You can rent out two bedrooms to unrelated people in Fairfax, but they can't have real apartments, with their own kitchen, not in a single family unit zone.
He told me that he had formerly done what he was accused of doing, but when he was informed that it was against the law, he stopped. He said they were just prejudiced against him because he's a Muslim, which made sense.
Fairfax County is very big on property values, sometimes to the point of absurdity, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
I went to his house with him, and he showed me where stoves and refrigerators used to be, that he had removed.
I was present when the county came out to inspect to see that he had removed all the improper gear, and walked around with the inspectors, as they went from room to room, making notes. Actually, I did this twice.
Then we had a trial, and I argued that the evidence did not indicate that he was subletting the house, but only that he had done so in the past, and he wasn't doing it anymore.
My client testified that everybody in the house was a relative of his, extended family, refugees from the Taliban. The dark haired woman with the baby sitting in the living room was his cousin, for example.
Then the county put on rebuttal evidence.
Turns out that during the inspections, they had surveillance cameras set up, which showed him and some men with trucks hauling away stoves, refrigerators, and other furniture before the inspection, and then hauling it back after the inspection. The county attorney showed photo after photo, furniture being hauled out, furniture being hauled in.
The piece de resistance was the testimony of the dark haired woman with the baby, who was Hispanic, obviously no relative, who had found her apartment from an ad in the Washington Post which she showed to the judge.
I wanted to crawl under the table.
The judge, a real hard ass, slammed him.
The client then filed a complaint against me with the Bar Association, complaining that if I had properly represented him, I would have done discovery, and known about the surveillance cameras -- which is true, except for the fact that he lied to me and told me that there was no validity to the allegations. The complaint was dismissed.
The sad thing, or maybe it's just ironic, is that he seems to be convinced that everybody was just prejudiced against him because he's a Muslim.
I am friends with the lawyer who is handling his divorce, but that's another story I won't tell, except to say that the judge in that case slammed him worse than I have ever seen (except one case involving an alleged Boy Scout troop leader who was actually engaged in threesomes when he was supposed to be at Boy Scout events - all adults, thank goodness -- the wife found out when she opened a foot locker full of naked porno three-way porno starring her husband -- the judge was a deacon -- very bad result for that client.)
Truth is stranger than fiction. |
