Lodi Man Is Released in Plea Bargain

Federal prosecutors Wednesday agreed to drop terrorism-related charges against Lodi ice cream truck driver Umer Hayat in exchange for a guilty plea in a 2003 customs case.

Hayat, 48, who spent nearly a year in jail and under house arrest on the charges, was released for time served. Six weeks ago, a hopelessly split jury failed to reach a verdict in his case.

“This outcome, of course, was not the one most desired by the government,” said U.S. Atty. McGregor Scott. The government still believes the original charges that Umer Hayat lied to FBI agents about his 23-year-old son, Hamid Hayat’s, 2003-04 attendance at a terrorist training camp in Pakistan, he added.

But Scott said retrying a case that had resulted in a mistrial was too daunting. “It was my decision that the felony plea we announce here today was the best resolution of this matter for the government,” he said.

In April, another jury found the younger Hayat guilty of all four counts against him. Hamid Hayat, scheduled for sentencing in July, faces up to 39 years in federal prison.

But the jury in the father’s case deadlocked 7 to 5 and 6 to 6 on the two charges against him. As a result, the government Wednesday allowed Umer Hayat to plead guilty to charges that he lied to customs agents at Dulles International Airport in Virginia on April 19, 2003, about the amount of money he and his family were carrying on their way to Pakistan.

Federal law requires individuals to declare amounts exceeding $10,000. Customs officials found that the Hayat family had more than $28,000 they said they were planning to use for Hamid Hayat’s upcoming wedding.

Defense attorney Johnny L. Griffin described the plea bargain as a victory for Umer Hayat, who he said had been unfairly branded as a terrorist.

“There is no way we were ever going to agree to any plea involving terrorism,” Griffin said outside the Sacramento Federal Courthouse, “because it was not true.”

Umer Hayat, smiling broadly at Griffin’s side, declined to comment.

Although Scott said the plea deal was a setback for the government, he added that the customs conviction of Umer Hayat, terrorism conviction of his son and deportation of Lodi’s two Muslim religious leaders on visa violations amounted to success for the government.

“Our region is much safer today than it was one year ago,” Scott said.

The four-year investigation of Lodi’s large Muslim community began in late 2001 after a Bend, Ore., convenience store clerk and former Lodi resident told FBI agents that he had seen known Al Qaeda terrorists worshiping in the Lodi mosque in 1999 and 2000.

The FBI quickly determined that the sightings were false but hired the store clerk, Pakistani Naseem Khan, as an undercover paid informant and sent him into the Lodi community, where he secretly recorded hundreds of hours of conversations with fellow Muslims. No evidence surfaced of any Al Qaeda connections.