Elk Grove doc’s federal indictment dismissed. Delays, COVID halted speedy trial, judge says
A federal court has dismissed an indictment against an Elk Grove doctor who was accused by the U.S. Department of Justice of hiding two non-citizens on her property for five years and forcing them into labor.
Dr. Firdos Sheikh, a neurologist, faced multiple counts of forced labor and alien harboring for financial gain, along with obstruction charges, and was indicted in 2018 by a federal grand jury.
A judge in the Eastern District of California last week granted Sheikh’s motion to dismiss the indictment on the basis of the Sixth Amendment and the Speedy Trial Act of 1974.
The dismissal order says that in a hearing last month, the two sides appeared to agree that the 70-day clock established by the Speedy Trial Act would not expire until mid-October 2021, due to a variety of procedural time exclusions detailed within the legislation.
Sheikh subsequently argued that the clock had already run out, with the defendant “pointing to several periods of time which she claims should not be excluded” from the 70-day period, the judge’s decision reads. The government responded with a proposed trial start date in April 2021.
Judge William B. Shubb, in a written order, effectively ruled that it doesn’t matter which side is right about the 70-day clock: In either case, there remains too much uncertainty about whether a federal jury trial will be feasible six months from now due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Continuing the trial date to April, Shubb wrote, “would just amount to kicking the can down the road.”
Shubb also cast doubt that the case involving Sheikh, who is not in custody, would rank high among the U.S. government’s priorities for those to bring to trial once jury trials are able to resume in the district court.
“The cases that were on file before March of this year are still awaiting trial, and the United States Attorney continues to bring new indictments in the meantime,” Shubb wrote. “If the experience in other districts in any indication, when jury trials are finally resumed in this district they will be tried one at a time using our large ceremonial courtroom.
“When that time comes, some serious thought is going to have to be given, and some difficult decisions are going to have to be made, as to which of the cases in the mounting backlog will actually be tried and the order they will proceed to trial.”
Sheikh’s case was dismissed without prejudice, meaning she can be indicted again on the same charges. The plaintiff — the federal government — can also appeal the decision.
Shubb wrote that late disclosure by the U.S. government of some required materials caused a “significant” amount of the past 10 months’ worth of delay.
Had that 10-month delay not materialized, Shubb wrote, the defendant may have been able to file her dismissal motion last December, preceding pandemic shutdowns by three months.
“This entire prosecution has been a nightmare for me and my family,” Sheikh said in a statement provided through her attorney, Yasin Almadani. “I have been trying to plead my innocence for years and I am thankful the Court dismissed the case.”
Almadani wrote in an emailed statement that Sheikh “vigorously” maintains her innocence, and the attorney claims that the materials disclosed late by the prosecution include evidence that exonerates her.
The judge wrote that it isn’t the court’s place to evaluate the reasonableness of such a claim regarding exoneration, “but given the evidence presented in the previous motions, the court can well understand the basis for defendant’s righteous frustration over not being able to have her case heard and decided when it could have.”
On top of these procedural concerns, Shubb wrote that the court “finds credible the defendant’s claims of prejudice as a result of the delay in bringing this case to trial.”
The indictment was filed more than two years ago, and received significant local media attention, including stories by The Sacramento Bee and other publications. The charges against Sheikh were alleged to have occurred no later than 2013.
Sheikh has told the court she has suffered anxiety, depression, hives “and progression of her diabetes from moderate to severe” since the indictment, Shubb wrote.
“Defendant, a practicing physician in the Sacramento community, also claims that (1) since the inception of the case she has regularly received phone calls from blocked numbers telling her that she is a criminal, (2) she is ‘constantly slandered on social media,’ (3) friends and colleagues have distanced themselves from her due to the charges in this case, (4) the case has drained her financially and she has been forced to ask friends and family for money to pay her legal bills, and (5) the government has put lis pendens on her properties, preventing her from selling or refinancing the properties.”
What was Dr. Sheikh accused of?
The DOJ indictment accused Sheikh of hiding two men between October 2008 and June 2013 and forcing them “to provide labor and services for her financial benefit.”
The indictment claimed she also lied to federal agents investigating the allegations, and tried to hide one of the victims from them. John Gore, then-acting assistant attorney general, announced Sheikh’s indictment in June 2018.
Sheikh’s attorney at the time, Thomas Johnson, told The Bee shortly after the charges were announced that the alleged victims “had been in the country illegally for years” and that “there was nothing preventing them from leaving her ranch ever.”
Johnson suggested the men may have made the allegations in an effort to change their immigration status. Victims of certain criminal activities, including trafficking, can be eligible for various forms of immigration protection, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Services.
ICE was investigating the case, Gore said in 2018.
Sheikh founded her Elk Grove neurology practice in 1997 after completing her residency at UC Davis Medical Center and has practiced in the Sacramento area for more than two decades.
“It is more important now than ever for prosecutors to set priorities, examine evidence carefully, and pursue only righteous cases,” Almadani, Sheikh’s current counsel and a former federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of California, said in his statement this week. “In this case, the Court found that the government had not disclosed exculpatory evidence showing significant weaknesses in its case.”
How coronavirus concerns impact district court trials
Shubb’s 15-page memo and order dismissing Sheikh’s indictment goes into remarkable detail about the challenges associated with bringing a case to trial in California’s Eastern District during the coronavirus pandemic.
The district court, a federal entity, is not itself “bound by the edicts of the Governor of the State of California,” Shubb wrote.
But the judge says that the court has a “practical and moral” obligation to not subject citizens “to unnecessary risk of serious illness or death,” referring to COVID-19.
“If the State of California has determined it is unsafe to recreate in a bowling alley for a few hours, even with masks and social distancing, how can this court say it is any safer, to sit for several days or weeks in one of our courtrooms?”
Shubb also highlighted the difference between county trials, such as those held in Sacramento Superior Court, and federal trials, explaining how the latter introduces greater risk.
“(E)ach county court summonses jurors from only that county, whereas our court brings in jurors from 34 counties, and many of them have to make arrangements to stay overnight if they are selected as jurors. The prospect of staying in a hotel in Sacramento raises a whole different set of concerns which need not be discussed here.”
Those 34 counties, like all 58 in California, have for the past six weeks had their COVID-19 risk levels assessed by state health officials as part of a four-tiered reopening framework. Sacramento County only recently exited the most restrictive purple tier, Shubb notes, and the other 33 counties are distributed across the new system’s four tiers.
It would be unethical and unsafe to bring together a jury pool from 34 different counties with varying levels of COVID-19 activity into one central location, Shubb argued, adding this strong statement:
“If any substantial number were to ignore our summonses or otherwise seek to evade jury service out of fear, our system would be in danger of collapse.”
