Nihil, thank you for your comment. I appreciate it, and I do agree with everything you say. In another of the strange coincidences of my life, I just got a call from Circuit Court, J.M., the worst offender in my experience with Middle Easterners, has a Rule to Show Cause hearing set for tomorrow, and the judge's secretary wanted to know if I still represented him. No, I don't, I said, and I doubt very much if he has a lawyer.
Here is a man who has created problems for himself of almost epic proportions. He was a lawyer in Afghanistan. His father was an important man in Kabul. They came here years ago, J.M. travels back and forth, his father and mother stay here (they are quite elderly). J.M. has strong ties to the local community, he is a "fixer." He has a very large house, beautifully furnished. He is expansive, and generous.
I think the beginning of his end is the fact that he can't have a regular job, I suspect for reasons having to do with face, he can't drive a taxi, for example, as so many of the Afghanis do. He was a translator for the local courts, and he was accused putting in false pay claims, and arrested on six felony counts, and worked out a deal whereby he would no longer translate if they dropped the charges.
He cut his house into apartments and rented them out, putting ads in the Washington Post. The County is very, very strict about stuff like that, and the neighbors complained, and the County investigated, and he denied it. He stepped on the wrong person's shoes, and they decided to make him an example. So they kept him under surveillance for years, off and on, and made an air-tight case against him.
I knew him from his translator days, he referred clients to me because I was not prejudiced against Afghanis, and I agreed to represent him, although working out payment was very unpleasant. I knew to get the money up front, and he just worked me up one side and down the other, but as you say, that's the way they do things. No hard feelings on his side, anyway.
He explained that he had violated the law in the past, but he had cleaned up his act. He showed me all over his house. I was there when the County inspected, twice, going from room to room, writing down things on pads, taking photographs. For example, he had turned his gargage into a large room, with a bathroom and a kitchen, and it is simply forbidden to have apartments in an area zoned R-1. It cannot be done, although if you sneak it by, well, you sneak it by. But with the County putting a periscope up your butt, you can't do it. Well, he convinced me that he used the room as a private chapel for Ramadan. The apartment in his basement was for his parents. And so on.
When we got to Court, the County produced photographic evidence that he would bring trucks to his house before the County inspections (which were announced) and haul away the stoves, refrigerators, and other evidence that he had tenants, take them to another property he owned, and then bring them back afterwards. I was so humiliated, because I had suspected he was lying, allowed him to convince me that he was honorable and the victim of a vendetta, he accused the County of prejudice against Middle Easterners and I bent over backwards to try not to be that way. He skillfully used my own weakness against me, but it only helped him in the short run.
The Judge's ruling mentioned that J.M. was a very clever man, who had been fooling a lot of people for a long time, but that he had not fooled the Judge. (I think that was a message to me not to feel so bad.) The Judge ordered J.M. not to have apartments in his house, and to do this, that, and the other thing, to comply with the County rules and regulations. That was three years ago, he has been back to Court many times on Rules to Show Cause, the first judge retired, the second one died of cancer, I don't keep close track any more, I think he is still on the third judge.
Afghanis are very hard to fight. History tells us that. The Russians found out the hard way. This guy is going to fight until the bitter end, I am sure of it. But, the County has him outnumbered, and the only one who can save him is the judge, and if he lies to the judge, he's dead meat, and he just doesn't get it.
I would not believe one word this man told me. Never again. |
