Anchorage Daily News

Editor's Note: This story first appeared 9/11/2003

A federal appeals court has reversed the bank and wire fraud conviction of an Anchorage Arab-American businessman in a case that developed after he reported his print shop vandalized and the words "We hate Arabs" spray-painted across an inside wall.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that District Court Judge James Singleton erred by not granting a request to move the trial of Nezar Khaled "Mike" Maad out of Anchorage after the extraordinary publicity that followed the vandalism, which occurred soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

"At issue here is a claim of presumptive prejudice rather than actual prejudice," the judges wrote, citing a previous case in which a trial was held in a community saturated with prejudice and inflammatory media publicity about the crime.

The U.S. attorney's office did not return phone calls Wednesday afternoon.

Maad's wife, Joanne, said her husband was somewhat overwhelmed by the development and did not want to comment. She said their faith in the United States and the judicial system had been validated.

"We knew the right thing would happen," she said.

She had no indication whether her husband would be retried.

"That's another day," she said. "Today's a great day."

Maad's attorney, federal defender Richard Curtner, said he was concerned early on that Maad would be convicted as a suspect in the vandalism of his print shop instead of the fraud charges for which he was on trial.

"It's vindicating in the sense that from the beginning I was concerned about the impact of the pretrial publicity," Curtner said.

The Syria-born Maad owned Frontier Printing Services on International Airport Road. He also was a vice president of Bridge Builders, a group that tries to foster understanding among the city's various ethnic groups.

In the days after the terror attacks, Maad designed and helped produce 50-foot banners that were signed by thousands of Anchorage residents and sent to New York City and Washington, D.C.

The 9th Circuit judges noted "a confluence of extraordinary and unique events" that enveloped the Maad case.

Maad's shop was vandalized Sept. 22, 2001, less than two weeks after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Machines at the print shop were smashed and the words "We hate Arabs" were spray-painted on a wall.

The judges noted that the Anchorage community at first supported Maad and his wife and established a "Not in our Town" fund on their behalf. The FBI launched a hate crime investigation.

But on Dec. 11, 2001, federal prosecutors announced they were dropping the hate crime investigation and charged Maad with committing bank fraud. A grand jury returned an indictment a week later.

The "Not in Our Town" fund had raised about $70,000. Maad received several thousand dollars from the fund before it was frozen.

Prosecutors said Maad inflated his business worth to get a $242,000 loan from Northrim Bank in 2000 that was guaranteed by the Small Business Administration. They also said Maad misrepresented his assets to get a $15,000 line of credit, as well as financing for new equipment from a leasing company.

Prosecutors also said Maad made false statements on the SBA application by failing to reveal his 1986 bankruptcy filing and two shoplifting convictions.

During a bail hearing, assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Cooper described Maad as a suspect in the print shop vandalism as a reason to keep him in custody. The comment was widely reported.

"He'd gone from victim to what I'd say was a traitor," Cooper said.

Maad's attorney, Curtner, requested that the trial be moved to Fairbanks or Juneau, if not out of state, because of the overwhelming publicity on television and in the state's largest newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News. He said Cooper's remarks could have prejudiced the jury.

Curtner also presented a survey that indicated that 75 percent of those polled were aware Maad was a suspect in the print shop vandalism. No one was ever charged in the vandalism case.

Federal prosecutors argued that there was not enough publicity to prejudice the juror pool. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jo Ann Farrington at the appeal hearing said Singleton took pretrial publicity into account and questioned prospective jurors extensively.

Maad had already completed a six-month prison sentence when 9th Circuit Court judges William C. Canby, Harry Pregerson and M. Margaret McKeown heard his appeal in Anchorage on Aug. 12.

They noted that Maad's federal public defender was appointed only 40 days before the trial.

The judges also noted the overwhelming publicity. From the day the print shop was vandalized through the period before the trial, the four Anchorage television stations broadcast 124 news accounts on Maad and the Daily News ran regular front-page stories.

The judges ruled that the District Court should have granted the change of venue.

"Those events, viewed in their entirety, precluded Maad from obtaining a fair trial in Anchorage," the judges wrote.

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