Imam Nermin Spahic on trial for sexual abuse. Trial begins on December 2.
This story is a few days old and I saw it reported by several bloggers so didn’t think it was necessary to post here too, but on second thought decided it was best to keep our coverage of Imam Spahic up-to-date.
We told you about the arrest here in August, where we further discussed how Iowa came to have so many Bosnian Muslim refugees (thank Bill Clinton and his meatpacker buddies).
An attorney for a Des Moines Islamic leader charged with sexual abuse and exploitation is asking a judge to drop two of the charges, arguing that they violate the man’s religious freedom.
In a motion to dismiss filed last week in Polk County District Court, Des Moines defense attorney Angela Campbell argued that Nermin Spahic, 40, had never met the two women who accused him of sexual abuse before the day of a religious ceremony that led to his arrest. The motion also says that Spahic never claimed to offer “mental health services” or counseling.
Spahic faces one count of third-degree sexual abuse and two counts of sexual exploitation by a counselor or therapist. He was arrested in August after a 42-year-old woman and her 18-year-old daughter told police that Spahic sexually assaulted them during a religious ceremony.
Prosecutors: “Voodoo priest”
The woman on Aug. 12 called Spahic to her house in Johnston for help with her daughter, who reportedly suffered personal issues, including depression and drug use, police and court papers said. Spahic allegedly performed an Islamic ceremony that involved “chanting and rubbing the body with oil,” court papers said.
In one section of the sealed minutes of evidence, prosecutors “inappropriately refer to Mr. Spahic as a ‘Voodoo priest,’” according to the motion. At the time of his arrest Spahic served as the imam – a leader of Islamic prayer services – at the Des Moines Islamic and Cultural Center Bosniak on Lower Beaver Road.
All of our previous posts on Bosnians are archived here.
Tysons’ pork processing plant in Columbus Junction, Iowa still bringing in the refugees—Burmese this time.
This is probably going to be inside baseball for some readers here. But, when we first began writing Refugee Resettlement Watch in 2007, there were TEN major federal refugee contractors instead of the NINE today. The tenth contractor was the State of Iowa.
Here then is a long story about workplace legal wrangling (wade through the first 25 paragraphs or so) and this is what the upshot of the mess in the office created for the resettlement program. I had wondered how they fell out of favor with the US State Department.
From the Des Moines Register(emphasis mine):
Colbert and Phillips contend that problems in the Refugee Bureau outlined in the court records are a window for the public to better understand the downfall of the agency — specifically its decision in 2010 to stop its resettlement service.
Phillips said that the agency, under Wilken, failed to apply for grants and key subsidies for the resettlement program.
Resettlement was for decades the lynchpin of the bureau, which dates back to former Gov. Robert Ray’s legacy work with Tai Dam refugees. The agency has since helped hundreds of refugee families escape war-torn or politically rife countries.
Today the agency — which is federally funded — focuses on social services instead of refugee resettlement.
“People are afraid that in two years, refugee services will completely cease to exist,” said Phillips, who now works in the human resources department at the Mitchellville Correctional Facility.
Lorentzen McCoy, the DHS spokeswoman, noted that the resettlement decision was made when the U.S. Department of State determined that the Iowa agency did not meet the criteria to continue with the placement program.
Colbert, who was hired in 2007 around the same time that Wilken was promoted to the bureau’s director, said federal officials had alerted Iowa of concerns it had with the resettlement program.
She contends that Wilken, who was the bureau’s deputy director for roughly 20 years prior to his promotion, didn’t act to save the program and even told her he would be satisfied if that part of the program would be terminated because other federal program money would keep the bureau going.
Records provided by the state show the bureau’s current budget of $1.9 million is about $200,000 lower than it was in 2010, when the resettlement program ended.
“I can tell you that when I got there they were in trouble. It was pages and pages of stuff that was wrong,” Colbert said of the Department of State’s assessment.
But, if you think you are off the hook in Iowa, you aren’t, there are at least two agencies resettling refugees in the state—Lutheran Services and Catholic Charities.
In fact, if we are going to have resettlement in the first place, I would get all the churches out of it and get the states back in control. Not that I have a lot of faith in government, I just think there is a little more accountability with a government agency overseen by elected officials (and presumably watching the purse strings). You can’t get at the inner workings of a “church” through normal sunshine legal provisions in the same way government is required to be transparent.
The photo is from this storyabout the impact of Burmese refugees on Columbus Junction (400 refugees to a town of 2000), but since its a pork plant at least they aren’t members of the Religion of Peace.
How many times do we hear that the ethnic and religious diversity refugees bring to your town strengthens your community? How do the open-borders pushers and the religious Left get away with that mumbo-jumbo time after time. Here is yet another story that puts a lie to the myth.
From the Des Moines Registerlast week. What “ritual?” An Islamic “marriage?”
Mugshot: Bosnian Imam Nermin Spahic arrested a week ago today on sexual assault charges.
Johnston police arrested a Muslim imam who serves at the Des Moines Islamic and Cultural Center Bosniak after he reportedly sexually abused two women during a ritual late Monday night.
Nermin Spahic, 40, was charged with third-degree sexual abuse and two counts of sexual exploitation by a clergy and transported to Polk County Jail, according to a press release from the Johnston Police Department.
Spahic’s arrest came after police were called to a house in Johnston late Monday night where Spahic was allegedly involved in a “ceremonial ritual” with an 18-year-old woman and her 42-year-old mother, according to the release. The woman told police Spahic sexually assaulted them both.
Police were called to the house just after 10 p.m. on Monday after receiving a report of the abuse. The caller reported receiving texts from the 18-year-old woman that she and her mother were both being sexually assaulted by a man in their house, according to the release. [Are the women refugees as well?—ed]
[…..]
The mother had asked for Spahic’s help and guidance on ”personal issues” the daughter was dealing with. Spahic arrived at the house and told the women the religious ceremony would help the daughter. Then, during the ceremony, Spahic assaulted them, the two women told police.
Why so many Bosnians in Iowa? Is history being revised?
The Imam celebrating EID in 2007
The answer is what we reportedhere in 2008—Bill Clinton resettled 80,000 Bosnian Muslims in Iowa and other Midwestern states in the wake of his phony war in Bosnia to supply cheap labor to his meat-packing buddies. How do you think Hillary got so close to Tyson Foods back in the day!
This is what we learned in 2008 from a 2001 Agribusiness newsletter (IBP, Iowa Beef Processors, was the largest meatpacker in the US, but was bought in 2001 by Tyson Foods, here).
“And IBP’s good fortune didn’t end there,” Limbacher continues, “turns out the Clinton administration’s Bosnian refugee resettlement efforts also helped to keep labor costs down. Since 1995, for instance, the town of Waterloo, Iowa — population 65,000 – has been swamped with 6,000 Bosnian refugees, many of whom wound up working for the No. 1 local employer, IBP.”
Until recently [2001—ed], IBP’s 2,000-strong Waterloo workforce was one-third Bosnian. Most refugee families that settle there have a family member who at one time or another worked for the meatpacking giant. In fact, the meatpacking industry has a history of recruiting on the ground in Yugoslavia. But during the Clinton years, companies like IBP haven’t had to travel that far.
Since 1995, the Clinton INS has resettled over 80,000 Balkan refugees, mainly Bosnian Muslims, primarily in America’s Midwest. The immigrant deluge has earned Iowa the distinction of being the only state in the union with its own refugee bureau.
Revising history! In searching around for more on the alleged sexual pervert Imam I came across this story which includes the photo of Imam Nermin Spahic on a better day, and quotes another Nermin on Bosnians in Iowa. They didn’t choose Iowa! Bill Clinton, his head of ORR at the time, Lavinia Limon, and the meatpackers need for cheap immigrant labor chose Iowa for them! You, the US taxpayer, supplemented (and still do!) the low meat packer wages with social services and education for the kids.
Many of the more than 12,000 Bosniaks living in Des Moines chose the area because the weather reminded them of home and the schools and businesses gave their families opportunities they couldn’t find in Bosnia, said Nermin Sehovicof Windsor Heights, who helped organize the event and is a founder of the Islamic and Cultural Center Bosniak in Des Moines.
The weather brought them to Iowa! What a crock!
The second photo (above) is from the 2007 story, the same one that said the weather brought them to Iowa, so when the Des Moines Register piece of last week was written they could have found out that the arrested Imam had been at the Center for at least 6 plus years. But, I wondered why it mattered if he was a new Imam or a long-time Imam.
Ready for a laugh? Here is the caption on the 2007 photo:
Imam Nermin Spahic talked about the importance of the family, building the Bosnian community, and being part of American society
The importation of refugee labor is how it is being done.
Here is one more storyabout Tyson Foods (or it could be Swift & Co, or perhaps Perdue) attracting refugee laborers to a meatpacking town—this time Columbus Junction, Iowa. Hat tip to one of our friends from Tennessee.
Downtown Columbus Junction, Iowa.
I first really began to understand this driver of the State Department’s Refugee Resettlement program here in 2008 when I read about Bill Clinton importing Bosnian so-called “refugees” for meatpackers in Iowa in the mid-1990s.
You see, readers, the meatpackers had discovered cheap immigrant labor from south of the border, but the enterprise became too risky as the feds began busting them in some highly publicized ICE raids. So, where did they turn…to refugees of course.
Heck they are legal workers and they are basically captive labor—they can’t go home (although some very unhappy ones do find the money to return to their homeland). In addition, you, the taxpayers, help to subsidize them with ‘social services’ while the meatpacker reaps the rewards—quite a business model!
For awhile the meatpacking giants were enthralled with the Somalis, but they came with one serious problem—they are Muslim and they began demanding workplace accommodation for their Islamic religious practices. We have a whole category entitled, Greeley/Swift/Somali controversywith 87 posts in it (here) for your further edification. However, in the story I am about to relate, they wouldn’t have hired Somalis anyway—it’s a pork processing plant.
What to do? What to do? We will tell the State Department to bring us some docile workers like the Christian Chin or Karen, or the Bhutanese/Nepalese who don’t complain so much. And, I’m convinced that somewhere in the bowels of Washington there was such a conversation between big business lobbyists and the federal government.
My scenario is not so farfetched when you see what is going on with the Gang of Eight being driven by Big Business and Grover Norquist, and you know this immigrant legalization push is not about “humanitarianism!”
COLUMBUS JUNCTION, Iowa (AP) — The first Chin Burmese student arrived at Wilma Sime Roundy Elementary School three years ago, a smiling preschooler whose father often checked on his progress.
The school had long been accustomed to educating the children of the Mexicans, Hondurans and Salvadorans who came to work at the sprawling Tyson Foods pork processing plant that sits outside this town of 2,000. But then, principal Shane Rosenberg recalled, Tyson informed school leaders that a new group of workers was coming – the Chin, a largely Christian ethnic minority who were fleeing their homeland in western Myanmar to avoid persecution.
Readers keep reading through all the paragraphs about how wonderful the newcomers are (and surely many are nice people). Everything is just great don’t ya’ know! Then we get to the problems …
Tyson spokesman: Nah! We don’t favor refugees (tell that to the Hispanics!)
Tyson and other meatpacking companies have increasingly recruited non-Latino workers in recent years, including Burmese, Sudanese and others, said Mark Grey, director of the Iowa Center for Immigrant Leadership and Integration at University of Northern Iowa. Since a 2008 raid of a Postville, Iowa, slaughterhouse, where 389 immigrants were arrested, companies have become more careful to avoid hiring employees who may have entered the country illegally, he said.
Refugees are in the country legally and may apply for citizenship within five years.
Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson denied the company was favoring refugees over others, saying the industry has long attracted immigrants for entry-level jobs that do not require experience or English skills. The makeup of its workforce shifts as new immigrant groups come to the U.S., he said. [There is also a tax break for hiring certain immigrant workers that no one is willing to talk about!—ed]
A little multi-culti friction has developed:
But in town, both the Chin and Spanish-speaking communities feel that more Chin are being hired at the expense of Latinos, which has caused some friction, said Cristina Ortiz, a doctoral student in anthropology who moved to Columbus Junction four years ago to study the town.
“Latinos and Chin people recognize they both have the same goals in life,” she says. “That is to make their lives better and provide for their families and live a tranquil life. But in a certain sense, they are in competition with each other. They are applying for the same jobs. They have the same skills. And that’s tricky. Obviously there is some tension there.”
Burmese Chin are arriving from other states where it’s tough to get a job (But wait! Isn’t the Gang of Eight telling us we need millions more low-skilled laborers).
In Columbus Junction, Mickelson said, the first five Burmese workers were hired as part of a recruitment effort in Illinois and later encouraged friends and relatives to apply. Burmese started arriving from Indiana, Texas, Florida and other states where they say jobs were harder to come by.
Problems at first with drunk driving, public urination, a few suicides, but once the women got there things calmed down. Now it’s just a housing shortage. But, AP wants you to know that Columbus Junction will be just fine.
City officials say some of the first arrivals abused alcohol, which had previously not been as cheap or available to them. Public urination and intoxication and drunken driving were common. But the police chief and other officials warned community leaders about their expectations, and as more women and children arrived, the problems have dissipated.
Two refugees have committed suicide and a third was found drowned in a river near the Tyson plant, said police Chief Donnie Orr. A shortage of mental health and substance abuse treatment is a problem, Ortiz said.
But refugees and city leaders agree the biggest challenge now is finding housing for the newcomers. City officials say there are hardly any available rental apartments, which go for about $450 a month for three bedrooms.
Hey, here is an idea! How about if Tyson Foods build some housing out of their profits and not with taxpayer money. And. while they are at it they could kick in the money for the school system to pay for the ESL teachers.
