Free Republic

<p>The city of Lodi is facing a possible lawsuit after the City Council voted to support a policy of saying prayers before council meetings.</p> <p>After the vote Wednesday, an official with the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation repeated the group's threat to sue the city.</p>

When Ryan and Breanna Anderson decided they wanted to purchase a home in Lodi for their young family, they knew they would have to act quickly to take advantage of plummeting prices. And though prices for homes in the area are down, so is inventory. And interest rates are near historic lows. That’s making it tougher to snap up bargain homes — and has led some to say Lodi’s real estate market may be stabilizing.

(05-05) 11:35 PDT LODI - Federal prosecutors announced today that they will retry a Lodi man after a jury deadlocked on charges that he allegedly lied to the FBI about his son's training at a Pakistani terrorist camp. Umer Hayat, an ice cream driver, faces up to 16 years in prison if he is convicted on two charges of providing false statements to federal investigators. Hayat was released Monday on bail. After U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell Jr. reduced Hayat's bail from $1.2 million, the equity in Hayat's home -- $390,000 -- was put up as a guarantee that he...

A former Lodi Police officer who shot himself in the hand in March will receive $100,000 in a workers' compensation payment from the city. Lance Hayden Sgt. Lance Hayden accidentally shot himself while he was alone at a shooting range in the basement of the former police station at 210 W. Elm St. He will not be able to return to duty. The Lodi City Council approved the settlement in a 4-1 vote Wednesday night in closed session. Councilwoman Susan Hitchcock was the dissenting vote. The money for the payment will come out of the city's Workers' Compensation Insurance fund,...

LODI — The Sopranos may not be sleeping with the fishes after all. The manager of Satin Dolls, known to fans as the infamous Bada Bing, says Tony Soprano and his crew could be smoking cigars at their favorite gentleman’s club once again — to film a Sopranos movie. Nick D’Urso, the manager, said renovations at “The Bing” were put on hold after the club received a phone call about plans for a feature film version of Jersey’s favorite crime family. Unwilling to break his vow of omerta, D’Urso refused to say who contacted him, but he insists the information...

Shoplifting is all in the family for one California clan, police say. A grandmother, her daughter and some of her grandchildren tried to steal $900 worth of merchandise from a Target store in Lodi, 35 miles south of Sacramento, police Officer Misty Smith said. The family's alleged shoplifting spree earlier this week was captured by surveillance video, which police say showed them cutting open boxes and hiding MP3 players, digital cameras, DVDs, jewelry and sports equipment in purses, bags and a backpack. An 8-year-old and a 5-year-old were among the family members detained. "The 5-year-old actually had a pack of...

Still not satisfied with the treatment of religions in her son's seventh-grade textbook, Korina Self aired her concerns Tuesday night at Lodi Unified's board meeting. Backed by nearly a dozen family members and friends, Self delivered a prepared statement asking the board to remove the book "History Alive!: The Medieval World and Beyond" from classrooms. "To know that a textbook was selected and put into use by our district that is blatantly one-sided, whitewashed, and that our children are being spoon-fed this information with sugar on top ... I feel is negligent and intolerable," Self said. Self stopped to gather...

SACRAMENTO, (AP) -- A California man convicted of attending an al-Qaida camp in Pakistan was sentenced to 24 years in federal prison Monday for supporting terrorists, concluding a case that divided a Central Valley farming community. U.S. District Court Judge Garland Burrell Jr. imposed the sentence against Hamid Hayat on his 25th birthday, saying he had "attended a terrorist training camp, returned to the United States ready and willing to wage violent jihad when directed to do so." Hayat faced up to 39 years in prison after his April 2006 conviction on one count of providing material support to terrorists...

Satin Dolls, the Lodi go-go bar featured on the “The Sopranos” as the Bada Bing club, is auctioning items on eBay for fans of the popular HBO drama about a suburban New Jersey Mafia family. The sale will make way for the club’s renovation. LODI – Bada Bing, the fictional strip club on the HBO television Mafia drama "The Sopranos" that brought fame to Satin Dolls go-go bar, is approaching its own ending. But unlike the TV show's abrupt blackout finale, which left many television viewers cathartically stifled in June, the Bing is fading away piece by piece, courtesy...

LODI, Calif. - Eighteen months after FBI agents swarmed Lodi's Muslim community and arrested a father and son on terrorism-related charges, investigators said they are still examining several individuals named by the pair. U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott and Drew Parenti, who heads the FBI's Sacramento office, met Friday with about 100 members of the Pakistani community at the Lodi Muslim Mosque. The site was part of a federal probe into what investigators initially said was a suspected terrorist cell in the agricultural community south of Sacramento. Hamid Hayat, 24, was convicted in April of one count of providing material support...

Three months after the RCMP began arresting 18 suspects accused of plotting terror attacks in Canada, an investigation by the National Post has uncovered a web of links to Pakistan. Today, in the first of four parts, the role of a Pakistani training camp is revealed.- - - BALAKOT, Pakistan - A worn footpath climbs from the Kaghan Valley highway into the lush mountains above the River Kunar, on Kashmir's western frontier. The locals all know where it leads. An hour's walk up the steep trail there is a training camp built by Islamic militants called Madrassa Syed Ahmed Shaheed...

A California teenager suspected of attending a terrorist training camp and his father are being denied re-entry to the United States after spending four years in Pakistan unless they submit to interviews and lie-detector tests, their attorney says.     Julia Mass says the rights of her clients, Muhammad Ismail, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, and his 18-year-old son, Jaber Ismail, to return to the United States are being violated because they are on the "no fly" list.     Miss Mass said an official at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad told Jaber Ismail that he and his father would be allowed...

From the NY Times we learn that once again the ACLU either doesn't care or doesn't have a brain when it comes to keeping the country safe. Whichever is the case they are actively undermining our security on a daily basis. This is just the latest example. Federal authorities have prevented two relatives of a father and son convicted recently in a terrorism-related case from returning home to California from Pakistan unless they agree to be interviewed by the F.B.I. It is unclear whether the men, Muhammad Ismail, 45, and his son Jaber, 18, have a direct connection to the...

The federal government has barred two relatives of a Lodi man convicted of supporting terrorists from returning to the country after a lengthy stay in Pakistan, placing the U.S. citizens in an extraordinary legal limbo. Muhammad Ismail, a 45-year-old naturalized citizen born in Pakistan, and his 18-year-old son, Jaber Ismail, who was born in the United States, have not been charged with a crime. However, they are the uncle and cousin of Hamid Hayat, a 23-year-old Lodi cherry packer who was convicted in April of supporting terrorists by attending a Pakistani training camp. Federal authorities said Friday that the men,...

FBI identifies terror camp in Pakistan Washington: Pakistan's claims that it does not have terrorist training camps in its territory is being strongly contested by the FBI which has told a US court that satellite pictures pointed towards such a camp.

A federal judge on Monday rejected a request to dismiss some of the counts against a Lodi man convicted of supporting terrorists, leaving in place the possible maximum prison sentence of 39 years. Hamid Hayat, 23, was convicted in April of one count of providing material support to terrorists by attending an al-Qaida training camp in Pakistan and three counts of lying about it to FBI agents. His attorney, Wazhma Mojaddidi, argued that federal prosecutors were piling on potential prison time by charging three versions of the same lying offense. Each count brings up to eight years in federal prison,...

SACRAMENTO -- A Lodi ice cream vendor pleaded guilty Wednesday to a lesser charge of trying to smuggle cash to Pakistan rather than be retried on allegations that he lied to the FBI about his son's attendance at a terrorist training camp. Umer Hayat, 48, was convicted of lying to customs agents about more than $28,000 he and family members were trying to carry on a flight out of the country three years ago. In exchange, prosecutors dropped charges that he lied to the FBI and he will serve no more jail time after spending nearly a year behind bars....

Feds to Retry Man Accused of Lying to FBI SACRAMENTO, Calif., May 5, 2006 (AP) Federal prosecutors will retry an ice cream vendor on charges that he lied to the FBI about his son's attendance at a terrorist training camp, authorities announced Friday. Umer Hayat's first trial ended with the jury deadlocked last month. The same day, a separate jury convicted his son, Hamid Hayat, of supporting terrorism by attending an al-Qaida camp in Pakistan. U.S. District Court Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. set June 5 to begin selecting a new jury for the father's retrial. "This case is simply...

Local residents were shocked Tuesday to learn 23-year-old Lodi resident Hamid Hayat was found guilty by a federal jury on separate counts of lying to the FBI about his connections to a terrorist training camp in Pakistan and providing material support to terrorists. The news came hours after a different jury declared a mistrial in the case against Hayat's father, Umer Hayat, who faced similar charges. The jury's forewoman, Woodbridge resident Debra Kiriu, claimed both sides failed to present any conclusive evidence in the case against the 48-year-old ice cream vendor. Word of the deadlock in the Umer Hayat case...

Residents in this Central Valley town had hoped to set aside the suspicions that divided them in the 11 months since federal agents arrested a young man, his father and two Muslim religious leaders amid terrorism allegations. But the government's chief prosecutor said Wednesday that the investigation is continuing - a day after a federal jury convicted 23-year-old Hamid Hayat of providing material support to terrorists by attending a training camp in Pakistan in 2003 and lying about it to the FBI. U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott is considering seeking a new trial for Hayat's father, Umer, 48, after a separate...

[Updated 3:59 p.m. Tuesday] Hamid Hayat, the 23-year-old Lodi man on trial for terrorist-related activities in Sacramento federal court, was found guilty Tuesday, just hours after a mistrial was declared in the related trial of his father, who was accused of lying to the FBI to cover up for his son. Hayat was found guilty of providing material support to terrorists by allegedly attending an al-Qaida camp while visiting Pakistan in 2003 and three counts of lying about it. He faces up to 39 years in prison if convicted of all charges against him.

A mistrial was declared Tuesday in the federal terrorism trial of a Lodi man charged with lying to protect his son, who authorities say attended an al-Qaida training camp in Pakistan. The announcement came one day after the jury told U.S. District Court Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. that it could not reach a unanimous decision. "Their jury declared that it was hopelessly deadlocked this morning," deputy court clerk Carol Davis said. Burrell questioned each member of the jury and then discharged them, she said. Umer Hayat, a 48-year-old ice cream vendor, is charged with lying to FBI agents about...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - In a potential blow to their terrorism case against a father and son, federal prosecutors on Thursday said there is no evidence to support statements by their key witness that a top aide to Osama bin Laden attended a northern California mosque in the late 1990s. The surprise move was designed to dissuade the defense from calling witnesses who would challenge the story's credibility. The witness, an FBI informant, told agents when they recruited him in 2001 that he had seen a high-ranking al-Qaida official and two other international terrorists when he lived in Lodi during the...

'Book of Jihad' found in terror suspects' Lodi home, FBI says DON THOMPSON Associated Press SACRAMENTO - Federal agents found publications promoting jihad and a Pakistani militant group in the central California home of a father and son charged with lying about involvement in an al-Qaida training camp, a prosecutor said Wednesday.FBI officials found the items while searching the family home in Lodi two days after the men were arrested last June, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Tice-Raskin said during the men's trial in U.S. District Court."This is the book entitled 'Book of Jihad,'" he said. "It teaches the virtues of...

LODI, Calif. - When a dump truck backed into Curtis Gokey's car, he decided to sue the city for damages. Only thing is, he was the one driving the dump truck. But that minor detail didn't stop Gokey, a Lodi city employee, from filing a $3,600 claim for the December accident, even after admitting the crash was his fault. After the city denied that claim because Gokey was, in essence, suing himself, he and his wife, Rhonda, decided to file a new claim under her name. City Attorney Steve Schwabauer said this one also lacks merit because Rhonda Gokey can't...

An FBI informant testified Monday in Sacramento federal court that al-Qaida’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, lived in Lodi during parts of 1998 and 1999. Naseem Khan, who is a critical prosecution witness in the trials of two Lodi men charged with having terrorist ties, testified he was living in Lodi in 1998 and 1999 and "every time I would go to the mosque (al-Zawahri) would be coming or going" from the mosque. Khan said al-Zawahri, known to the FBI as Osama bin Laden’s personal physician and top adviser, "disappeared" sometime in 1999.

Unbeknownst to most Americans, federal prosecutors opened their case recently in the terrorism trial of a young American who studied under two Taliban-tied imams in California and whose grandfather was Pakistan’s minister of religion in the 1980’s. The trial of Hamid Hayat, 23, is not taking place in the dark of night nor in a military tribunal from which the media is barred. It is in an open California courtroom, the very kind that has been overrun for trials of the likes of Scott Peterson and O.J. Simpson. Yet in the month of February, the New York Times had exactly...

The Enemy Within Two cases suggest the next terror strike on U.S. soil will be carried out not by foreigners but by Americans By Joel Mowbray Lodi, Calif., is nestled in a sleepy agricultural area 35 miles outside of Sacramento. The Pakistani population in the city of about 60,000 has grown exponentially over the past several decades and now numbers several thousand. Local non-Muslims, when interviewed by media, have given little indication they suspected virulently anti-American Islam was practiced there. Yet prior to coming to the United States, the imam of a local mosque encouraged his flock to travel from...

Vastly different pictures emerged today of a man charged with attending an al-Qaida camp in Pakistan, with government attorneys portraying Hamid Hayat as a trained terrorist intent on attacking Americans while his defense described him as a directionless young man prone to wild storytelling. Prosecutors said they will show the 23-year-old Lodi man traveled to Pakistan in 2003 and 2004 to train at the camp. They also said he was awaiting information about potential targets after he returned to his family's home in the heart of California's farming region. "Hamid Hayat talked about jihad before he even left the United...

The trial for two ACLU and CAIR defended men with extensive ties to terrorist supporters in Pakistan begins today.The Sacramento Bee, which has been following the case closely, is now the target of a FBI investigation over information it published from a sealed federal indictment. Two Muslim religious leaders who attended the same California mosque as Hamid & Umer Hayat have already been deported. The son, Hamid, is charged with giving material support to terrorists and three minor counts of lying to investigators. The father, Umar, is charged with two counts of lying to the FBI.

Former Peninsula Congressman Paul "Pete" McCloskey Jr., best remembered for his Vietnam War opposition and his speech calling for the impeachment of President Nixon, will announce his candidacy Monday in Lodi as a Republican challenger to Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy.The feisty 78-year-old beat the bushes for months in his quest to find a Republican willing to run against the seven-term incumbent with whom he has major political differences.But when no one volunteered, McCloskey asked, "Why not me?"After all, he said, Benjamin Franklin was 82 when he cast his vote for the U.S. Constitution, and former President Bush sky dived on...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - A federal judge on Wednesday rejected bail for a Lodi man involved in a terrorism investigation, finding that his relatives could not properly post his $1.2 million bond. U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott said he was gratified by the ruling, which overturned a decision last month by a federal magistrate who approved bail for Umer Hayat. Hayat's attorney said he will appeal Wednesday's decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Hayat, 47, was arrested in June and charged with lying to the FBI by denying that his son attended an al-Qaida training camp in Pakistan...

Efforts to win Umer Hayat's release from jail fell into doubt Friday after a federal judge expressed strong concerns about the competency of an uncle who offered to help provide bail for the Lodi resident charged with lying to the FBI about alleged terrorist ties. Hayat's uncle, Sher Afzel, owns one of four properties being offered as security for $1.2 million bail set last month by U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. Other properties are owned by Hayat's cousin, Safdr Afzal; his brother, Umer Khatab; and his son, Hamid Hayat, who also is jailed on charges in connection with...

Shrouded in controversy, the fate of a Farooqia Islamic Center off Lower Sacramento Road has been up in the air for years. When a land use permit to begin construction was finally approved in July, however, would-be neighbors filed an appeal against the project, citing concerns about noise and traffic. That appeal will be approved or denied Tuesday by the county Board of Supervisors, whose members will focus on the specific complaints of noise and traffic. Jack Sieglock, who represents Lodi on the board, said the group will not likely address broader concerns about what the applicants want to do...

SAN FRANCISCO – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced today that the former imam of the Lodi mosque who was arrested in June on immigration violations has been removed from the United States and returned to Pakistan. ICE officials say the removal of Shabbir Ahmed, 38, was completed overnight with his arrival in Pakistan on board a commercial flight escorted by ICE officers. The cleric’s deportation follows an August 15 immigration hearing where he advised Immigration Judge Anthony Murry that he was abandoning his legal fight to remain in the United States and would accept an order of removal...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The second of two Islamic leaders accused by the government of plotting to set up a terror training camp in California has been deported to Pakistan, his attorney said Thursday. Shabbir Ahmed was deported Wednesday night after dropping his opposition to a charge that he overstayed his religious visa while heading a mosque in Lodi, attorney Saad Ahmad said. Ahmed and four other men from the mosque were arrested in June after federal authorities infiltrated the Pakistani community in Lodi and secretly recorded dozens of conversations over three years. Muhammad Adil Khan, another religious leader from Lodi...

In the days after federal agents arrested five residents of Lodi in a terror investigation in June, a clean-cut young man who had befriended the suspects and had spent nights at their homes vanished. Umer Hayat is charged with lying about activities in Pakistan. He hasn't been seen in town since, and now members of Lodi's Muslim community suspect they know why: The man, who called himself Nasim Khan, was a government mole, they believe, an informer whose surreptitious tape recordings of one of the suspects are at the heart of the federal probe. Community members said Khan, who is...

SAN FRANCISCO - Federal prosecutors allege that secret recordings offer further details about a 22-year-old Lodi man they claim attended a jihad training camp designed to teach attendees how to kill people, a newspaper reported in Monday's edition. The latest allegations came Friday from U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott in a court filing, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. In the filing, prosecutors asked a federal judge in Sacramento to continue holding Hamid Hayat and his father, Umer Hayat, 47, without bail. A hearing was scheduled Monday at U.S. District Court in Sacramento, where attorneys for the Hayats were to argue...

A Pakistani cleric facing immigration charges agreed Monday to be deported to his home country, a week after being accused of plotting to open a terrorism camp in Lodi to train followers to kill Americans. Shabbir Ahmed, 39, will be deported on charges unrelated to terrorism: overstaying his religious-work visa while heading a mosque in Lodi.An FBI agent testified last week that Ahmed was acting as an intermediary for Osama bin Laden and other terrorists. The agent refused to testify whether Ahmed was a member of a terror group, saying that information was classified.Ronald LeFevre, chief counsel for the Bureau...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A lead FBI agent on Tuesday linked two local Muslim clerics to the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, contending the two were planning to set up a school near Lodi that would breed anti-American terrorism. The agent testified that Lodi clerics Shabbir Ahmed and Mohammed Adil Khan were prepared to relay information on terrorist plots from sources close to bin Laden. The allegations were dismissed by Ahmed's lawyer, who said the FBI and federal prosecutors have "made the whole thing up." The striking allegations came during an immigration hearing for Ahmed at which Immigration Judge Anthony Murry...

SAN FRANCISCO — Federal prosecutors laid out their case against a Muslim cleric from Pakistan on Wednesday, alleging that he was involved in a northern California terror network with links to terror leader Usama bin Laden (search) and that his group was planning to set up a camp to train followers to kill Americans. Shabbir Ahmed (search), 39, is only charged with overstaying his visa while he was heading a mosque in Lodi, a town of 62,000 about 30 miles south of Sacramento. The allegation about the terrorist camp came from an FBI agent's testimony during the immigration hearing. "Do...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Federal prosecutors said Tuesday that Lodi Islamic leader Shabbir Ahmed was part of a long-term effort to build a Lodi Muslim school to train future jihadists who could commit acts of terrorism in the United States. FBI Special Agent Gary Schaaf testified that Ahmed was involved in a "long-term plan" to set up an Islamic school in Lodi whose students would be "ready to commit acts of violence." Schaaf said that school -- the proposed Farooqia Center in southwest Lodi -- would be patterned after the Islamic university in Pakistan called Jamia Farooqia, which was listed by...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A judge refused to set bail Tuesday for a Muslim cleric from Pakistan who faces deportation and has been accused of planning to set up a camp to train followers to kill Americans. Shabbir Ahmed, 39, is only charged with overstaying his visa while he was heading a mosque in Lodi. The allegation about the terrorist camp came from an FBI agent's testimony during the immigration hearing. "Do I believe he is planning a terror attack?" FBI agent Gary Schaaf said. "That's some of the information that has been provided to us." He testified that Ahmed and...

They've interviewed people, followed people, arrested people and even, some say, directed planes to fly ceaselessly over the city. There is little doubt the FBI has been a powerful presence in Lodi in the days since the arrest of several local Muslims in what has been termed a terror investigation. Two former Lodi imams were also arrested on immigration charges: Shabbir Ahmed, 35, and Mohammad Adil Khan, 47, and Khan's son, Mohammad Hassan Adil, 19. Adil Khan and his son have agreed to be deported rather than face federal charges. The arrest drew a boisterous legion of media -- and...

LTC Joseph Myers, US Army, and former senior DIA analyst, offered some interesting ideas and comments on the Lodi case and al Qaida as a nascent insugency in the US, drawing lessons from Colombia's insurgency and the role of civilian subversive organizations and whether the FBI and our laws are ready to face this threat... Great Quote on the Farooqia Center: I would dissent from that view, and put it this way: "Seemingly legitimate organizations are created for sinister reasons, for insurgent activity" His interview will restream on your computer every 2hrs [+ or - 2hrs from 1845 eastern time]...

LTC Joseph Myers, US Army, and former senior DIA analyst, offered some interesting ideas and comments on the Lodi case and al Qaida as a nascent insugency in the US, drawing lessons from Colombia's insurgency and the role of civilian subversive organizations and whether the FBI and our laws are ready to face this threat... Great Quote on the Farooqia Center: I dissent from that view, and would put it this way: "Seemingly legitimate organizations are created for sinister reasons, for insurgent activity" His interview will restream on your computer every 2hrs [+ or - 2hrs from 1030 eastern time]...

Muslim cleric Mohammad Adil Khan's impending deportation after being linked to an FBI terrorism probe clears up his fate, but it does nothing to resolve the question of what will happen to a school for this city's Islamic community that he was helping to build. Adil Khan, who comes from the same region of Pakistan where most Lodi Muslims trace their roots, was a prolific fund-raiser who had spent several years pulling together more than $300,000 for a school for the Farooqia Islamic Center. More than 400 people came to a county Planning Commission hearing in April on the center,...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - An Islamic religious leader held on immigration charges as part of an investigation into terror activity in the agricultural community of Lodi agreed Friday to be deported to Pakistan along with his son. Muhammed Adil Khan, 47, and his 19-year-old son, Mohammad Hassan Adil, admitted overstaying their visas. In exchange, immigration authorities at a brief hearing in an immigration court dropped other allegations that the two misrepresented themselves to obtain religious visas.

Lodi -- A Muslim cleric with ties to Lodi men caught up in an FBI terrorism investigation agreed today to be deported along with his son rather than fight government immigration charges. Mohammad Adil Khan, 47, and his son, Mohammad Hassan Adil, 19, had been accused of overstaying their visas and of coming to the United States under false pretenses. Both men admitted to visa violations during a court proceeding in San Francisco today. In exchange, the government set aside allegations that Adil Khan lied when he came to the United States and that he had falsely claimed to be...

He is the author of: "Are Plans in Place if Schools attacked?" "Proliferation Terror Time for a New Deterrence Strategy" http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/05/breaking2453439.html "Does al Qaida have nukes?" http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44251 This program will restream every 2hrs from 1006 EST until Monday morning, listen at your convenience.