A Doral businessman accused of selling video-game players to a Paraguayan shopping mall designated by federal authorities as a front for a Middle East terrorist group was granted a $1.55 million bond in federal court on Monday.
But Khaled Safadi, 56, charged with two other Miami-Dade business associates in a terrorism-related conspiracy indictment last month, can post the bond by putting down $100,000 cash and securing the rest with his home and other assets, a U.S. magistrate ruled.
Federal prosecutors argued that Safadi, a Paraguayan citizen with legal U.S. residency, was a flight risk and should be detained before trial. His lawyer, Michael Tein, mocked the government's prosecution as a trumped-up ``civil customs violation'' and argued that he should be released on a $50,000 bond.
Magistrate Judge William Turnoff, noting that Safadi had no prior criminal record and strong ties to his family and community, decided that the defendant should be released before trial but reminded him of the severity of the charges.
``I hope you understand what's going on here,'' Turnoff said. ``It's a very serious matter.''
Safadi and two Miami-Dade freight forwarders, Ulises Talavera and Emilio Gonzalez-Neira, face terrorism-related smuggling charges alleging they secretly exported a total of $720,000 in Sony PlayStation 2 consoles and Sony digital cameras to the shopping center between 2007 and 2008. U.S. authorities say the Galeria Page Mall, in Paraguay's Ciudad del Este, served as a front for financing the Middle East terrorist group, Hezbollah.
Safadi, Talavera and Gonzalez-Neira were arrested Feb. 18 on conspiracy charges of violating a post-9/11 law that prohibits any person or company from doing business with a U.S.-designated terrorist group.
Safadi, owner of Cedar Distributors, and Talavera, 46, owner of Transamerica Express of Miami, were arrested in Doral. Gonzalez-Neira, 43, owner of Jumbo Cargo, was arrested in Sunny Isles Beach. Their export and freight-forwarding businesses were also named as defendants in the 11-count indictment.
On Monday, Talavera, represented by attorney Peter Raben, was granted a $550,000 bond agreed to by Assistant U.S. Attorney Russell Koonin.
Gonzalez-Neira, represented by lawyer Silvia Piñera-Vazquez, agreed temporarily to no bond before trial.
While the indictment does not identify the terrorist organization Hezbollah, it explicitly names a U.S. blacklisted shopping and office complex in Paraguay to which the businessmen allegedly sold thousands of Sony PlayStation 2 consoles and Sony digital cameras.
The Treasury Department has singled out the commercial mall, Galeria Page, as a funding source for the U.S.-designated terrorist and political organization Hezbollah, based in Lebanon.
Prosecutors said that the three Miami-Dade defendants did business with a fourth suspect, Samer Mehdi, who owns a business called Jomana Import Export that operated in the Galeria Page Mall. Mehdi, a 37-year-old Brazilian and Paraguayan national, has not been arrested.
``That entity is on the banned list because it supports Hezbollah,'' Koonin told the magistrate judge. ``It's our theory that the defendants were shipping to the banned entity.''
Safadi's lawyer, Tein, said his client is not a terrorist and has no ties to any terrorist group. He accused the government of ruining his client's reputation.
At one point, he held up a Sony PlayStation 2 console for the judge.
``It's a children's toy,'' Tein said. ``He is being accused of shipping a children's toy to Paraguay.''
``It's a shame that the government has pumped this thing up as a terrorism case,'' he said.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents working with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force in South Florida began the investigation into the alleged smuggling ring in 2007.
According to the indictment, Safadi was a distributor of the Sony-brand electronics to the freight-forwarders, Talavera and Gonzalez-Neira. They shipped the products to Mehdi.
To conceal the true destination of the shipments, the defendants fabricated invoices with false addresses and fictitious consignees on required export paperwork, according to the indictment.
Also, Mehdi's wire-transfer payments in Paraguay to the U.S. distributors were routed through various facilities to mask their true origin, the indictment states.
