| * ELMO BRINGS LAWSUIT ! * | |
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| Topic Started: Jul 16 2008, 12:50 AM (2,822 Views) | |
| Tony Soprano | Jul 16 2008, 12:50 AM Post #1 |
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. ELMO's NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE! Duke lacrosse cabbie files suit By John Stevenson : The Herald-Sun jstevenson@heraldsun.com Jul 16, 2008 DURHAM -- After figuring in the Duke lacrosse case and becoming Reader's Digest magazine's Hero of the Year, former Durham cabbie Moezeldin Elmostafa has launched what his lawyer described Tuesday as a priceless and perhaps unprecedented court claim. It involves his U.S. citizenship, which Elmostafa contends was delayed for two years by an old and bogus criminal charge that resurfaced in 2006 while the lacrosse debacle was in full swing. "Citizenship is absolutely priceless," said Elmostafa's lawyer, Tom Loflin of Durham. Still, Loflin wants several defendants to come up with a figure. "If they don't agree to my number, we'll let a jury decide what it's worth," Loflin vowed. "We'll ask jurors what their citizenship is worth to them. The jury can put a number on it." Elmostafa received judicial permission this week to add the unusual citizenship clause to an already existing lawsuit. Loflin and Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Orlando F. Hudson said Tuesday they were unaware of any previous court claims of the kind. A Sudanese immigrant, Elmostafa finally gained his U.S. citizenship in April of this year. Now, he wants reimbursement from those who allegedly delayed the process by once bringing a misdemeanor criminal charge against him. They include a former Hecht's security guard named Jonathan Massey, Hecht's Company Inc. and Macy's Retail Holdings Inc., which has taken over the Hecht's operation. Raleigh lawyer Dan Hartzog, representing the defendants, said Tuesday he could not comment on the allegation of delayed citizenship. A warrant had accused Elmostafa of helping a woman steal $250 worth of handbags from the former Hecht's store at Northgate Mall in 2003. The then-cabbie was acquitted in August 2006 after testifying that he merely gave the woman a ride and didn't know what she was up to. By then, the handbag incident had been linked to the Duke lacrosse case, in which three student athletes were charged with sexually assaulting an exotic dancer during an off-campus party in March 2006. Elmostafa became an alibi witness for one of the athletes, Reade Seligmann, since he drove Seligmann to a bank machine, fast-food restaurant and campus dorm while the alleged sexual attack supposedly was in progress. The way Elmostafa saw it, the 2003 criminal warrant against him was resurrected three years later in retaliation for his anti-prosecution stance in the lacrosse proceedings. In the end, Seligmann and two Duke codefendants were declared innocent by the state attorney general, and former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong lost his job and his law license over the affair. Meanwhile, Elmostafa recently gave up his cab business and now operates limousines to and from Raleigh-Durham International Airport. Reader's Digest named him its 2008 Hero of the Year in March. http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/durham/4-971522.cfm . Edited by Tony Soprano, Jul 16 2008, 12:55 AM.
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| Baldo | Jul 16 2008, 01:05 AM Post #2 |
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Go Elmo Go!  Wasn't this incident at Hecht's in Northgate Mall? Wasn't this security guard a wannabe cop? |
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| Tony Soprano | Jul 16 2008, 01:20 AM Post #3 |
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. YES, I would love to probe the relationship of that Security guy (Wannabe) and Mark Gottlieb and Benjamin Himan (both with offices at the same mall). It doesn't hurt his case that his passenger is back behind bars for the 100th time (close) and none of her crimes were thought out to the point of her recruiting people to assist. Especially not people without drug problems and without criminal records. This woman (Hawkins) is clearly out-of-control and then some and I believe the record will show that she is too compulsive and reckless to plan crimes, recruit, and divide the "bounty." Can you say Crackhead? |
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| Concerned | Jul 16 2008, 01:40 AM Post #4 |
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Sock it to 'em, Elmo! |
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| ~J~ is in Wonderland | Jul 16 2008, 06:55 AM Post #5 |
~J~ is in Wonderland
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| Bill Anderson | Jul 16 2008, 06:57 AM Post #6 |
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What I found most interesting was that Himan and Clayton spent the entire day at court, staring down Elmo and trying to intimidate him. You know, if one of us were to try to intimidate a witness, we would go to jail. For Durham police officers, it is just another day at the office. But, the local black community "leaders" did not speak up, and, in fact, to this day still are lying about it. I read some of Cash's comments on the case and he made a bunch of wild claims. More proof to me that the bad guys are on top in North Carolina. 
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| sceptical | Jul 16 2008, 07:47 AM Post #7 |
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Why didn't Elmo's lawyer include the Durham PD and Prosecutor's Office in the suit? Is there any cause of action against Nifong, Himan, Clayton etc. for attempted witness intimidation? Or did the lawyer decide to take the easier route of going after the low hanging fruit by suing the security guard and Hecht's? In any case, I hope Elmo collects BIG. The delay of citizendship is an interesting wrinkle in the amended suit. |
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| Truth Detector | Jul 16 2008, 07:59 AM Post #8 |
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It seems too obvious to leave out members of DPD and Nifong in this lawsuit. |
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| Quasimodo | Jul 16 2008, 08:11 AM Post #9 |
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A picture is worth a thousand words. . . 
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| maggief | Jul 16 2008, 08:34 AM Post #10 |
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http://www.newsobserver.com/138/story/480871.html Published: Aug 31, 2006 12:00 AM Modified: Aug 31, 2006 02:51 AM Trip to cabbie's trial a waste, with meter on Ruth Sheehan, Staff Writer Sitting in Durham District Courtroom No. 1 on Tuesday watching the "Elmo hour" stretch into a day, I was reminded of a colleague who was advised to watch the TV show "JAG" for insight into a military trial she was covering. Afterward, I asked her what she thought. She said: "I want my hour back." I feel the same way about my Tuesday. On Tuesday, Moezeldin Elmostafa, the cabbie who provides an alibi for one of the men indicted in the Duke lacrosse case, stood trial for allegedly aiding and abetting the shoplifting of five or six handbags from the Hecht's at Northgate Mall in Durham nearly three years ago. Elmostafa, known in the blogosphere as Elmo, was originally charged with misdemeanor larceny, but the district attorney's office dodged the statute of limitations and changed it. Before the trial, word was that the "aided and abetted" shoplifter in the case would testify against Elmo. Also, the authorities had a security tape proving Elmo's involvement. Let's just say that neither one panned out. The shoplifter never testified. And the tape? Well, that was like going live with Geraldo Rivera when he opened Al Capone's vault: There was nothing there. Instead of showing a cab speeding away from the scene of a crime, the tape showed the shoplifter hiding her bags behind her hip, then getting in the backseat and closing the door. Then the cab pulled away from the curb. Elmo's greatest crime? Failing to come to a complete stop in a near-empty mall parking lot. Elmo's lawyer noted that it took nearly three years (and a role in the lacrosse mess) for the authorities to pursue his client -- even though Elmostafa continued to be employed by the same cab company until last year, and remains a part-owner of that cab company to this day. The assistant D.A. said Elmo couldn't be found because his first name had been misspelled. Uh, right. A few weeks ago, I used speculation about Elmo's treatment (he's being harassed! his reputation tarnished!) to poke a little fun at the bloggers in the black-helicopter-infested skies of cyberspace. But darn if this isn't another case where the bloggers, with all their paranoid conspiracy theories, just might be right, however hysterical their tone. How else to explain the fact that District Attorney Mike Nifong was following this misdemeanor case so closely he asked to be informed when Elmo got picked up? The judge should have thrown the whole thing out. But in the end, at least she found Elmo not guilty. It was a waste of my day, to be sure. But it was also a wasted day for one judge, one clerk, two bailiffs, two assistant district attorneys and two Durham investigators working the lacrosse case. Unlike me, they were wasting time on the public's dime. Not to mention the cost of bringing the shoplifter from the women's prison near Rocky Mount to Durham. All for what? Even if Elmo were guilty -- and he might have been -- the district attorney's office should have taken a hard look at the evidence. From the vaunted videotape, to the testimony of their star witness -- a habitual shoplifter with a record a mile long. In fact, "Elmo hour" might hold a pointed lesson for Nifong et al: There are some charges that, for the sake of the accused, the victim, and the community, it just might be better to drop. |
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| Clowns | Jul 16 2008, 08:51 AM Post #11 |
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Go Elmo!!!
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| Bill Anderson | Jul 16 2008, 09:33 AM Post #12 |
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The reason that Elmo cannot sue Durham and the police is that there was a real-live outstanding warrant. Now, all of us know that it was contrived and that he was prosecuted in order to try to smash Reade's alibi, but nonetheless once Hechts brought the complaint, they had to file it. Now, because they used the shoplifting charge as a way to try to discredit Elmo and Reade, Durham and the police would have been vulnerable to criminal charges of intimidating witnesses and obstruction of justice, but since Roy Cooper and the feds are not interested in pursuing criminal charges, the real criminals in this case get off scot free. Another example of justice in North Carolina and Amerika.
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| Diesel | Jul 16 2008, 09:53 AM Post #13 |
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Bill (Anderson), you say that "I read some of Cash's comments on the case and he made a bunch of wild claims. More proof to me that the bad guys are on top in North Carolina." Do you really think that Cash's work is proof that " the bad guys are on top in North Carolina"? Since we stopped reporting Cash's pieces in Liestoppers, I haven't missed a damn thing. I also noted that Cash's reportage received absolutely no coverage in Rachel Smolkin's award winning article in the American Journalism Review of ""Justice Delayed: The Media's Duke Lacrosse Debacle." So I conclude that the expert assessment of Cash's oeuvre is the same as mine. Incidentally, I posted something like the last remark in Talk Left when Smolkin's article originally appeared and my contribution was subsequently taken down by Jeralyn Merritt. Edited by Diesel, Jul 16 2008, 06:50 PM.
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| wingedwheel | Jul 16 2008, 10:06 AM Post #14 |
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Way to go Elmo!!! 
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| jewelcove | Jul 16 2008, 10:12 AM Post #15 |
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Does anyone know if there is a link to Elmo's lawsuit? It would be interesting to read. |
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