Did Bush's New Homeland Security Nominee Protect Terror-Linked
> Doctor from Prosecution?
> Bernard Kerik, Michael Chertoff... Who's Next? Tony Soprano?
> Jan. 12, 2005-- Venice, FL
> by Daniel Hopsicker
> A MadCowMorningNews World Exclusive!
> From: http://www.madcowprod.com/01122004.html
>
> Michael Chertoff, appointed by President Bush to head the Homeland
> Security Department, may have shielded from criminal prosecution
> while in charge of the U.S. Government's 9.11 investigation a
> former client suspected by law enforcement of having funneled
> millions of dollars directly to Osama Bin Laden.
>
> Egyptian-born Dr. Magdy el-Amir, a prominent New Jersey neurologist,
> was at the center of terrorist intrigue in Jersey City.
>
> El-Amir gave money to a conspirator in the 1993 World Trade
> Center Bombing Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman.
> His brother in Cairo was caught on tape attempting to buy weapons
> from an American undercover agent for Islamic militant groups.
>
> Before being arrested in a terrorist deal involving oil and
> heroin for guns and training, arms smuggler Diaa Mohsen was paid
> at least $5,000 by one of Dr. el Amir's companies, NBC's Dateline
> reported.
> And his HMO was suspected by law enforcement of being used to
> funnel money directly to Osama bin laden.
>
> Wire Transfers to "Unknown Parties"
>
> Chertoff's client "caused more than $5.7 million to be paid by
> wire transfers to unknown parties," said the lawsuit filed shortly
> before the state took over his failing HMO.
>
> News accounts about el-Amir's legal difficulties contain unanswered
> questions about undue political influence and its effect on national
> security.
>
> For example, how did el-Amir, who only the month before had been
> granted a state license to operate an HMO, finagle a lucrative
> contract from the state of New Jersey in 1995?
>
> 'Why was this doctor allowed to start a health plan?' asked the
> October 25, 1999 issue of the medical trade journal Medical Economics.
>
> 'How could this medical entrepreneur, who had no experience running
> a managed-care or health insurance company, receive a license
> for an HMO that now provides care to 44,000 of New Jersey's most
> vulnerable citizens?" asked The Bergen Record. 'Moreover, how
> could the state pay such a novice $ 6 million a month in taxpayers
> money to take on such a responsibility?'
> Why did Michael Chertoff even take the case?
>
> Skimming for Osama in New Jersey
>
> Answers were slow in coming, until it was revealed that at the
> same time el-Amir was pitching state business he had begun making
> generous contributions to the governing Republican party, donating
> nearly $ 18,000 to various GOP candidates in 1996.
>
> And a foreign intelligence report made available to the Chairman
> of the House International Committee alleged that an HMO owned
> by Dr. el Amir in New Jersey was 'funded by Ben Laden,' and that
> in turn Dr. el Amir was skimming money from the HMO to fund 'terrorist
> activities.''?
>
> Stuff like that doesn't happen, does it? In New Jersey?
>
> Barely three years after enrolling its first patient, APPP lay
> in financial ruins, its network doctors and hospitals were saddled
> with millions of dollars in unpaid claims, and its founder had
> retained the services of Michael Chertoff.
>
> Did Chertoff know where the stolen money was going?
>
> "Frankly, we can't differentiate between terrorism and organized
> crime and drug dealing," then-Asst Attorney General Michael Chertoff
> told the Senate Banking Committee looking into the terrorists'
> money trail in the aftermath of 9.11.
>
> 'These groups don't hold themselves independently: They work
> with one another. Terrorists get engaged in drug activity. They
> have relationships with organized crime," Chertoff said.
>
> Paging Tony Soprano
>
> Chertoff was undoubtedly worth every penny Dr. Magdy paid him:
> though doctors and hospitals calculated they were owed more than
> $45 million, Dr. ElAmir faced no criminal charges.
>
> When the MadCow Morning News first reported on Mob and terrorist
> connections to "Magic Dutch Boy' Rudi Dekkers and the covert
> operations conducted at the Venice Airport, Michael Chertoff
> was running the official U.S. investigation.
>
> Dekkers remains free.
>
> Magdy el-Amir continues to live and practice in New Jersey.
>
> Now that Chertoff has been tapped to keep America safe, questions
> are sure to resurface about whether he hadn't himself been instrumental
> in helping to make America dangerous.
>
> Documents in the el-Amir case remain under seal. Fortunately,
> the following information does not. From the Bergen County Record
> (New Jersey) on January 24, 1999:
>
> 'For a while, Magdy Elamir looked like the Horatio Alger of managed
> care in New Jersey.'
> 'An Egyptian immigrant who parlayed a storefront medical practice
> in Jersey City into a multimillion-dollar health-care empire
> that served thousands of the state's poorest citizens, he lived
> in a Saddle River mansion and contributed generously to candidates
> for political office'?
>
> 'His health maintenance organization, American Preferred Provider
> Plan Inc., is about to be sold by state regulators to salvage
> some money for doctors and hospitals who calculate they're owed
> more than $ 45 million.'
>
> In August 2002, NBC's Dateline reported on the el-Amir case:
>
> 'Last fall, DATELINE obtained information about this man, Magdy
> el Amir. He's a prominent doctor, a neurologist with a practice
> in Jersey City. Born and educated in Egypt, he moved to this
> country about 20 years ago and since then has built a fortune'?
>
> My brother likes tanks, is all.
>
> 'Well, take a look at this document obtained by DATELINE last
> fall. A foreign intelligence report that makes a startling allegation
> about the doctor, that he has had financial ties with Osama bin
> Laden for years. The report was given to a senior member of Congress,
> Ben Gilman, back in 1998 when he was chairman of the House
> International
> Relations Committee'?
>
> 'The report alleges that an HMO owned by Dr. el Amir in New Jersey
> was 'funded by Ben Laden,' and that in turn Dr. el Amir was skimming
> money from the HMO to fund 'terrorist activities.''?
>
> 'Less than a year after the congressman says the FBI received
> the report, Dr. el Amir's HMO was taken over by the state of
> New Jersey? according to sources close to the investigation,
> more than $15 million is unaccounted for. Where did the money
> go? DATELINE has reviewed documents that show at least some of
> it went into hard-to-trace offshore bank accounts'?
>
> 'But the intelligence report suggests one thing that he doesn't
> deny, that he has donated money to the mosque where the blind
> sheik once preached, Omar Abdel-Rahman, who is now in prison
> for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing'?
>
> 'DATELINE has found another reason why federal investigators
> might want to pay close attention to Dr. el Amir and his family.
> It's something we learned when we interviewed Randy Glass, the
> con man-turned-undercover operative who helped the government
> break up an illegal weapons ring allegedly tied to terrorist
> groups. It turns out that one of the people recorded trying to
> arrange an arms deal with Randy Glass was Dr. el Amir's own brother,
> Mohamed, an engineer, also a US citizen now living in Egypt.
> And just listen to what he was interested in'?
>
> 'Mr. GLASS: (From tape) OK. They want to ship things like tanks,
> correct?'
>
> 'Mr. EL AMIR: (From tape) Uh-huh? No, no, no, no, just ammunition,
> not tanks.'
>
> 'Glass says federal agents told him to drop the matter'?
>
> 'That same intelligence report that talks about Dr. [Magdy] el
> Amir also names his brother Mohamed as having ties to Osama bin
> Laden.'
>
> Chertoff for the Defense
>
> The el-Amir's appear to be intimately linked with Osama bin Laden,
> making the following report from The Bergen Record quite puzzling,
> dated December 11, 1998:
>
> 'A Superior Court judge on Thursday ordered state Insurance
> Commissioner?
> to take control of American Preferred Provider Plan Inc., a
> health-maintenance
> organization for Medicaid patients allegedly bled dry by its
> Saddle River owner, neurologist Magdy Elamir'?
>
> 'But in a hint of the gravity of his legal predicament, he was
> represented in court by Michael Chertoff, the former U.S. attorney
> in Newark and counsel to U.S. Sen. Alfonse D'Amato's Whitewater
> investigation.'
>
> Yes, the soon-to-be Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff
> represented a known bin Laden operative. Perhaps more troubling,
> Chertoff also headed the U.S.'s investigation into the September
> 11th attack. From the New Jersey Law Journal, August 4, 2003
>
> 'The Sept. 11 investigation was supervised by Assistant Attorney
> General Michael Chertoff, head of the U.S. Criminal Justice Division,
> who is now a Third Circuit judge.'
>
> More on Chertoff from the New Yorker, November 5, 2001:
>
> 'Since the September 11th terrorist attacks, Chertoff's office
> has become the funnel for what is probably the most important
> criminal investigation in American history, as prosecutors and
> F.B.I. investigators pour in to seek the boss's approval. What
> leads can we use from the search of a hijacker's car in Portland,
> Maine? Where do the hijackers' credit-card records lead?? For
> day-to-day decisions, Chertoff has the last word'?
>
> 'Graduating from Harvard Law School, in 1978? he served as a
> model for an intense and brilliant character in his classmate
> Scott Turow's book 'One L,'
>
> Intense, brilliant...corrupt?
>
> Though el-Amir's HMO was known to be affiliated with bin Laden
> since the mid- 1990s, Chertoff offers an alternate view of the
> HMO's financial statements. From The Record, December 18, 1998:
>
> 'Elamir's attorney, Michael Chertoff, the former U.S. attorney
> in Newark, offered the doctor's first in-depth defense to the
> state charges Thursday, insisting that Elamir had not misappropriated
> any funds from APPP [el-Amir's HMO].'
>
> Also from The Record, December 16, 1998:
>
> 'Michael Chertoff, a former U.S. attorney who is Elamir's attorney,
> said the state's papers don't give the complete picture of the
> company's finances. 'It's a one-sided picture of what's going
> on,' he said.' It would be unfortunate if the state's approach
> is to find someone to punish, rather than solve the problem.''
>
> 'Chertoff said Elamir would like to work with the state in its
> effort to rehabilitate the HMO.'
>
> Chertoff's comments on the case made The New York Times on December
> 18, 1998:
>
> "'Dr. Elamir's lawyer, Michael Chertoff, said that all transactions
> were approved by state agencies and that his client has done
> nothing improper.'
>
> The Bergen Record printed a post-trial wrap-up of the case on
> February 22, 2000:
>
> 'A year after a Medicaid HMO accused of misusing state and federal
> funds was dissolved by the state, its founder is still enjoying
> a millionaire's income while the hospitals and doctors who allegedly
> were defrauded delay programs for the poor and fight for restitution'?
>
> 'APPP's founder, Saddle River neurologist Magdy Elamir, continues
> to practice medicine in a Jersey City storefront office and lives
> in a $ 1.8 million mansion in one of Bergen County's toniest
> suburbs, court records show. His car leases alone total $ 65,000
> per year, the records show.'
>
> 'The Egyptian immigrant also operates a chain of MRI facilities
> in Newark, Irvington, and Paterson, a limousine company, and
> a medical management company. Combined with his medical practice,
> his income totals more than $ 18,000 weekly, nearly $ 1 million
> a year, records show.'
>
> A Republican voice for the downtrodden
>
> ?'He's still in good spirits,' said Michael Chertoff, the former
> U.S. attorney in Newark whom Elamir hired as his defense lawyer.'
>
> 'Public records in the civil case contain no reference to a criminal
> investigation, but court officials said some documents in the
> case were under seal. The state Attorney General's Office would
> neither confirm nor deny an investigation. The state's Medicaid
> fraud division is not involved in the case, a Medicaid spokesman
> said'?
>
> 'Elamir's property and bank accounts are worth more than $ 8.8
> million, according to his financial statement, but mortgages
> and other liens reduce his net worth to $ 760,000'...
>
> Why would New Jersey's Top Attorney Michael Chertoff represent
> a person of el-Amir's relatively modest financial position? Though
> comfortable, el-Amir had failed to reach millionaire status.
> Not exactly Chertoff's typical clientele, as reported by The
> Bergen Record on June 19, 2000:
>
> 'New Jersey is home to about 65,000 lawyers, some of whom are
> quite good at what they do. But if the state had a First Lawyer,
> or a Lawyer Laureate, it just might be Michael Chertoff'?
>
> 'His counsel is sought by public corporations, politicians, government
> agencies, and high-profile defendants'?
>
> 'Columbia/HCA, the health-care consortium? is the ninth-largest
> employer in the United States? As the lead attorney for Columbia,
> Chertoff negotiated a partial settlement of the case in May for
> about $ 745 million'?
>
> 'When he entered private practice, Chertoff said he would not
> represent drug dealers and mobsters, preferring to work for 'decent
> people.'' Link
>
> Well, after all, it was only a preference.
>
> ****************
>
> STANDARD DISCLAIMER FROM UQ.ORG: UnansweredQuestions.org does
> not necessarily endorse the views expressed in the above article.
> We present this in the interests of research -for the relevant
> information we believe it contains. We hope that the reader finds
> in it inspiration to work with us further, in helping to build
> bridges between our various investigative communities, towards
> a greater, common understanding of the unanswered questions which
> now lie before us. -----------------------------------------------------------------
> The Scoop website is at http://www.scoop.co.nz/
> This Story is at http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0501/S00072.htm

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