Two years in jail awaiting a verdict. A wife guilty on charges of lying to federal agents to protect her husband. Intercepted e-mails and financial statements. Thousands of man-hours in investigative and prosecutorial work.

The costs have been high for Rafil Dhafir and his family, matched evenly by the stakes for the prosecutors and investigators who have committed time and effort to investigating the Manlius oncologist’s alleged Medicare fraud, violations of U.S. sanctions on Iraq and abuse of his charity, Help the Needy.

After a 107-day trial, the defense made its summation Tuesday, leaving the decision in the hands of a jury. A crowd of at least 80 people rotated in and out of a packed courtroom between breaks to hear the closing arguments.

‘We’re confident that no mistake will be made by this jury; that no tragedy will occur in this courtroom,’ said Joel Cohen, one of Dhafir’s three attorneys. ‘You can’t convict someone on speculation. You can’t convict someone on surmise. You can’t convict them on suspicion.’

Dhafir is charged with conspiring to circumvent the U.S. embargo against Iraq under Saddam Hussein’s administration and stealing half a million dollars from his charity, Help the Needy. He is also charged with defrauding about $300,000 from Medicare, and $400,000 in tax evasion.

Attacking the case against Dhafir yesterday, one of his other attorneys, Devereaux Cannick, alleged the prosecution allowed witnesses to lie on the stand, as well as misrepresent evidence.

‘A lawyer is supposed to tell the truth when he knows a witness lies,’ Cannick said.

Cohen said in his summation that, if anything, Dhafir’s only crime was a lack of accounting skills, and that the charges against him are the product of over-commitment by law enforcement and prosecutors to deliver a verdict against a Muslim-American.

‘Once it went as far as it did, there was one thing for sure,’ Cohen said. ‘Once Rafil Dhafir was investigated, he was going to be indicted.’

Repeatedly, the prosecution objected to Cohen’s references to the motives of the investigators, which U.S. District Judge Norman Mordue ruled out of bounds at the beginning of the trial as irrelevant, once possible terrorist activity or links to terrorist groups was eliminated as a concern.

Originally, however, funding to terrorist groups was considered a possibility.

‘As President Bush leads an international coalition to end Saddam Hussein’s tyranny and support for terror, the Justice Department will see that individuals within our borders cannot undermine these efforts,’ Attorney General John Ashcroft said when the indictment was issued. ‘Those who covertly seek to channel money into Iraq under the guise of charitable work will be caught and prosecuted.’

Cohen pursued the idea in his summation, however.

‘I think you can reasonably infer that what those agents were interested in was a lot more than health care fraud, visa fraud and tax evasion,’ Cohen said to the jury. The comment was stricken from the record after an objection.

‘(The case) was very much about the government’s hunt for terrorism,’ Cannick said at a press conference. ‘They never found any terrorism, so they brought back these arguments about Medicare.’

The case against Dhafir includes a video tape that the prosecution claimed reveals Dhafir was siphoning money from his charity, Help the Needy’s financial records and various intercepted e-mails discussing non-humanitarian projects in Iraq.

Much of the controversy stems from Dhafir’s decision to deposit funds for Help the Needy in his personal bank account.

The charges of Medicare fraud stem from allegations that Dhafir billed Medicare for treating patients on 26 occasions at rates that require him present for the care, when prosecutors claim he was out of the country.

After lying to federal agents about her knowledge of the extent of the Medicare fraud, Priscilla Dhafir, Rafil’s wife, pleaded guilty to the charges that she gave false information.

‘As I prepare to fight the most important fight of my life, it strikes me that the government would go to such extremes in order to try to get a conviction,’ Dhafir wrote in a letter to the Post-Standard on Oct. 2, 2004. ‘I am aware that this is election season, and they have lost nearly 100 percent of the cases brought against Arab-Americans.’

The jury is scheduled to enter deliberations tomorrow.

Published on February 1, 2005 at 12:00 pm