Sammamish resident Mustafa “Marc” Khosraw could face up to 30 years
in jail for participation in what the U.S. Attorney’s Office calls a
mortgage fraud scheme – one that has gained national attention.
Khosraw, 46, is one of 406 people indicted in Operation “Malicious
Mortgage,” a federal investigation that uncovered 144 mortgage fraud
cases between March 1 and June 18. The U.S. Attorney’s Office alleges that Khosraw, a mortgage broker,
drafted false mortgage documents as part of a six-person team in the
Puget Sound area that made $8.5 million in profits in 2004 and 2005.
Sammamish
has been the site of three suspicious fires in recent weeks. Two of the
fires took place on the 20500 block of Northeast 29th Street and the third was in a dumpster behind Quality Food Centers at 2902 228th Avenue Southeast.
Fire Marshal Tim Pilling of Eastside Fire and Rescue said there is
no evidence linking the blazes, which were all extinguished quickly and
caused minimal damage. He said they may have been the result of
mischief that sometimes accompanies the Fourth of July holiday, or
improperly discarded cigarettes. There are no indications that the
fires were intentionally set.
The Sammamish City Council will ask Eastside Fire and Rescue to limit the growth of its 2009 budget by no more than five percent over its 2008 budget of $17.1 million, council members said July 1.
“We should ask them to take a look at if there’s a way they can cut
back in areas that are not salaries and benefits,” said City Manager
Ben Yazici. “We’re in challenging times and we need to look at ways to
streamline our budget.”
If King County officials respond to the county’s budget crisis by
reducing criminal justice funding, some of the impacts could trickle
down to Sammamish.
Facing a $68 million shortfall in the 2009 budget, King County Executive Ron Sims has proposed an 8.6 percent cut to criminal justice services, which make up 71 percent of the county’s budget. Those services include the county sheriff’s office, prosecuting
attorney’s office, superior and district courts and Department of Adult
and Juvenile Detention.
Middle-aged women condemn it on the B52 bus. Teenagers worry about it on their way home from school. Posters at the entrance to a local high school offer rewards for information about it.
In the school's auditorium, a forum of concerned community leaders has gathered to take another crack at eradicating youth violence - the age-old problem plaguing their community of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.
They walk past a poster bearing the face of Rashawn Brazell, a former student killed in a grisly attack two years ago that left the 19-year-old's dismembered body on the A-train tracks of a subway station seven blocks away. The New York Police Department has offered $22,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction but no one has come forward.
A mortgage fraud ring in Brooklyn agreed to pay $1.8 million in restitution to victims, according to an agreement with Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. This article was published in the New York Daily News. Click on the article to enlarge it.
Activists and members of the the 79th Precinct Community Council in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn (pictured) discussed anti-violence outreach in the neighborhood following a summer marked by a spike in violence.
This article was published in the Bedford-Stuyvesant edition of Courier-Life Publications in October 2006.
With the five-year anniversary of the September 11 terrorist
attacks just three months away, Brooklynites are still waiting for an
explanation for the street closures around MetroTech Center in Downtown
Brooklyn that followed them.
The closures, made by the New
York Police Department and the Department of Transportation in
the interest of security, are marked by jersey barriers and about a
half dozen stationary patrol cars staffed 24 hours a day at key
intersections around the city’s 911 call center and Fire Department
headquarters, located at 9 and 11 MetroTech.
Published in Courier-Life Publications. (Sorry - the link for this article is currently unavailable.)
Two former gang members who describe themselves as former drug
kingpins were among the panel members who spoke at a gang awareness
forum held at the high school Benjamin Banneker Academy in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. Published in Courier-Life Publications. (Sorry - the link for this article is currently unavailable.)
If terrorists decide to target the Nets basketball arena planned
for Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, it is unclear how the 19,000 people
that the arena is planned to seat would be evacuated. Forest
City Ratner Companies, the developer of the Atlantic Yards
project that includes the arena and 17 residential and office towers,
says the company does not discuss security with the public.
Published in Courier-Life Publications. (Sorry - the link for this article is currently unavailable.)
