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US govt wants continued detention of suspect in driver’s license scam
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Posted on Jul 04 2011
The U.S. government wants the continued detention of one of the five suspects in a driver’s license scam at the Department of Public Safety pending trial.
Assistant U.S. attorney Kirk Schuler asked the federal court to detain Mohammad Jahangir Miah as keeps violating his terms of pretrial release by committing other crimes.
Schuler said that Miah had been ordered detained by two federal judges, but after spending almost three months in detention by March of 2011, and possibly spending another three months in detention while waiting for a June 20 trial date at the time, a third federal judge granted him relief.
“He has broken local and federal laws and his continued release will only result in continued criminal activity that is a danger to the community and a violation of his pretrial release conditions,” Schuler said.
In addition to Miah’s lengthy run-ins with the law and criminal history, Schuler said the suspect was on pre-trial release when he was alleged to have committed the crimes in this case.
Schuler said there is clear and convincing evidence that Miah violated his conditions of pre-trial release by violating narcotics laws and by violating his home detention condition. He said there is probable cause to believe that Miah was in possession of marijuana on May 24, 2011.
Moreover, the prosecutor added, Miah attempted to influence a witness’ testimony—a clear violation of local and federal law, as well as a violation of his pretrial release conditions.
“Local and federal law prohibits the tampering of witnesses,” he said.
The violation hearing was supposed to take place last Thursday, but Miah, through counsel Joseph Horey, asked to postpone the hearing. The hearing was later moved to July 21, 2011 at 1:30pm.
Miah is currently on pre-trial release awaiting a Sept. 12, 2011 trial date. His four co-defendants—William A. Hocog, Tahira Dolores Miah, Hongmei Sun, and Hui Qiang Yan— have already pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.
According to the prosecution, Sun and Yan introduced foreign nationals as driver’s license applicants to the Miah couple in order for the applicants to illegally obtain driver’s licenses with the help of Hocog.
