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Parties Involved:
Fouad Saeed Abdulkadir
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION

File Name: 25a0021n.06

No. 24-3298

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

FOUAD SAEED ADBULKADIR,

Defendant-Appellant.

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ON APPEAL FROM THE 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT 

COURT FOR THE NORTHERN 

DISTRICT OF OHIO

OPINION

Before: CLAY, GIBBONS, and GRIFFIN, Circuit Judges.

GRIFFIN, Circuit Judge.

Defendant Fouad Saeed Abdulkadir defrauded the State of Ohio and the United States by 

underreporting his income to receive unemployment and health insurance benefits. A jury 

convicted him of wire fraud and theft, and the district court sentenced him to 21 months’ 

imprisonment. He challenges on appeal the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his convictions, 

the district court’s limitation of certain witness testimony, and the reasonableness of his sentence. 

We affirm.

I.

For several years, Abdulkadir claimed that he had no income and that he spent his time 

volunteering for the Islamic Center of Northeast Ohio (ICNEO). He also submitted forms (such 

as weekly volunteer timesheets) to government agencies, which were prerequisites to receiving 

public assistance. As a result, he received $15,367 from the State of Ohio’s Temporary Assistance 

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to Needy Families (TANF) public assistance program, $23,599 from the Supplemental Nutrition 

Assistance Program (SNAP), and $41,559.24 in Medicaid benefits. 

An investigation revealed that defendant did not qualify to receive these public benefits

because he received compensation and had other income. So a grand jury indicted him on

27 counts of wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343; 23 counts of aggravated identity theft in 

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(1); and two counts of theft of public money in violation of 

18 U.S.C. § 641. 

At trial, testimony disclosed that Abdulkadir received payment for his roles as imam, 

resident scholar, and drafter of the ICNEO’s constitution despite his certification that he was an 

unpaid volunteer. He similarly received payments and reimbursements for his work at the Islamic 

Center of Wheaton, Illinois (ICW). Abdulkadir then opened many personal and business bank 

accounts and formed limited liability entities to hide funds. For example, Abdulkadir had sole and 

complete control over one of his many restaurant’s bank accounts, which received thousands of 

dollars in cash payments from investors. His bank and business records indicated that his income 

exceeded the thresholds for all three public assistance programs. 

Following trial, the jury found Abdulkadir guilty of 24 counts of wire fraud and two counts 

of theft of public money, and it found him not guilty for all counts of aggravated identity theft and 

three counts of wire fraud. The district court imposed a within-Guidelines sentence of 21 months’ 

imprisonment. This timely appeal followed.

II.

Abdulkadir first argues that there was insufficient evidence to support his convictions for 

wire fraud and theft of public money. A sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenge must fail if “a 

rational jury could have found the elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” United 

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States v. Bertram, 900 F.3d 743, 748 (6th Cir. 2018). Abdulkadir’s burden is “very heavy” because 

we do “not judge the credibility of witnesses or weigh evidence,” and we draw “all reasonable 

inferences in the government’s favor.” United States v. Ostrander, 411 F.3d 684, 691 (6th Cir. 

2005).

A.

To sustain a wire-fraud charge under 18 U.S.C. § 1343, the government must prove “(1) a 

scheme or artifice to defraud; (2) use of interstate wire communications in furtherance of the 

scheme; and (3) intent to deprive a victim of money or property.” United States v. Robinson, 

99 F.4th 344, 354 (6th Cir. 2024) (footnote and citation omitted). “A scheme to defraud includes 

any plan or course of action by which someone intends to deprive another by deception of money 

or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises.” Id. (ellipsis 

omitted). The “essence” of the crime is that “the victim is persuaded to believe that which is not 

so.” Id. at 355. 

Any rational jury could conclude that Abdulkadir’s conduct meets these elements. He

submitted fraudulent timesheets and falsely reported that he had no income to receive funds for 

which he did not qualify—a scheme to intentionally deprive the government of public-assistance 

funds. The government presented witnesses and documentation establishing that defendant 

represented his income was zero and his bank accounts had only de minimis funds; but at the same 

time, he received funds from several sources, including two restaurants, the ICNEO, and the ICW,

and he had access to thousands of dollars across numerous bank accounts. And the evidence 

demonstrated that Abdulkadir used wires (emails and faxes) to facilitate his fraudulent scheme and 

to receive the public-assistance funds. 

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Abdulkadir unpersuasively asserts that the government did not prove a scheme to defraud 

or that he knew his income exceeded TANF’s income ceiling. But circumstantial evidence is 

sufficient to sustain a conviction. United States v. Jones, 102 F.3d 804, 807 (6th Cir. 1996). And 

here, a reasonable jury could conclude, based on circumstantial evidence, that he engaged in 

intentionally fraudulent conduct. That is, his representations that he had no income and little-tono funds were not an innocent oversight; rather they were a scheme to obtain public funds by 

creating nearly 40 bank accounts and receiving payments only in cash from his restaurants, 

ICNEO, and the ICW. 

The evidence was therefore sufficient to sustain the wire-fraud convictions.

B.

Theft of public money requires embezzling, stealing, purloining, or knowingly converting 

money or property belonging to the United States. 18 U.S.C. § 641. The government must prove 

that defendant: “(1) knowingly (2) stole or converted to the use of another (3) something of value 

of the United States.” United States v. Osborne, 886 F.3d 604, 608 (6th Cir. 2018). 

As explained above, a jury could reasonably find that Abdulkadir’s conduct—intentionally

submitting false qualifying statements to receive government funds—constituted stealing or 

converting. Thus, his contention that the government voluntarily and intentionally transferred the 

funds to his account is without merit. We therefore affirm the theft-of-public-money convictions.1 

1To the extent that Abdulkadir challenges the district court’s jury instructions as to the 

definitions of “value,” “embezzle,” and “steal,” he forfeited this issue by failing to list it in his 

statement of issues on appeal. See United States v. Calvetti, 836 F.3d 654, 664 (6th Cir. 2016). 

And even if he had preserved this issue, it is without merit. Because he failed to object to the jury 

instructions in district court, we would review the jury-instruction challenge for plain error only. 

United States v. Hughes, 505 F.3d 578, 597 (6th Cir. 2007). He cannot overcome this high hurdle. 

For one, he makes no argument that the instructions themselves, “viewed as a whole, were 

confusing, misleading, and prejudicial.” United States v. Frei, 995 F.3d 561, 565 (6th Cir. 2021) 

(citation omitted). And for another, his citation to mostly out-of-circuit cases concerning the 

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III.

Abdulkadir next challenges the district court’s decision to limit Nasir Abdulrahman’s 

testimony. Before trial, Abdulkadir submitted a witness list indicating his intent to call 

Abdulrahman to testify about “Muslim customs regarding loans without paperwork” and about 

money he personally loaned to defendant. Following the government’s objection, the district court 

held that although Abdulrahman could testify about his personal experience lending money to 

Abdulkadir, he was not qualified to testify about Muslim lending practices. 

We review a district court’s evidentiary rulings for an abuse of discretion, which occurs 

when we are “firmly convinced that a mistake has been made, i.e., when we are left with a definite 

and firm conviction that the trial court committed a clear error of judgment.” United States v. 

Miner, 774 F.3d 336, 348 (6th Cir. 2014). We have no such conviction here, where the district 

court did not allow generalized testimony about Muslim lending practices from a single member 

of the Muslim community who had no specialized knowledge, training, experience, or education

on the topic. 

Although defendant attempted to offer Abdulrahman as a lay witness, the court correctly 

surmised that his proffered testimony about Muslim culture and practices required expert 

credentials that he did not have. See Fed. R. Evid. 701(c). Abdulrahman could testify “rationally 

based on [his] perception” about his own experiences lending to defendant, see Fed. R. Evid. 

701(a), but not as an expert in Muslim lending practices because Abdulkadir neither proffered 

foundation for any specialized knowledge nor provided the government with required expert 

disclosures, see Fed. R. Crim. P. 16(b)(1)(C), (c). 

definitions of theft, embezzlement, and conversion that were not before the jury does not identify 

binding caselaw from our court that calls the district court’s instructions into question. See United 

States v. Al-Maliki, 787 F.3d 784, 794 (6th Cir. 2015). 

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Thus, the district court did not err by limiting Abdulrahman’s testimony.

IV.

Last, we review Abdulkadir’s procedural and substantive reasonableness challenges to his 

sentence under the deferential abuse-of-discretion standard. United States v. Evers, 669 F.3d 645, 

661 (6th Cir. 2012). 

A.

Procedural reasonableness requires us to determine whether the district court improperly 

calculated the Guidelines range, treated the Guidelines as mandatory, failed to consider the 18 

U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors, based its sentence on erroneous facts, or failed to adequately explain the 

sentence. United States v. Wendlandt, 714 F.3d 388, 393 (6th Cir. 2013); Gall v. United States, 

552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007). The court made none of these errors. 

When calculating the Guidelines range, the district court did not “disregard” the presentence report, as defendant alleges. First, the court accurately established a base offense level

of seven for 18 U.S.C. § 1343 offenses under Guideline § 2B1.1. Next, it addressed Abdulkadir’s 

objection to the application of § 2B1.1(b)(10), which increases the base offense by two levels when 

the theft offense “involved sophisticated means.” The court rejected Abdulkadir’s argument that 

his several businesses and many bank accounts did not require sufficient “sophistication” to apply 

this enhancement. Rather, it explained that “the way in which these [businesses] were operated” 

and “the monies were flowing” indicated that Abdulkadir “controlled the cash.” To be sure, the 

court reasoned, “this was a very multilayer set of accounts,” which allowed money “to flow 

primarily to Mr. Abdulkadir.” Ultimately, the court concluded, “this was a very sophisticated 

operation” that permitted Abdulkadir to “really manipulate things and hide what he was doing.” 

The court’s well-reasoned application of § 2B1.1(b)(10) was not an abuse of discretion.

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Nor was the court’s application of § 3B1.3, which adds two levels if “the defendant abused 

a position of public or private trust” to facilitate the offense. After hearing arguments from both 

sides, the court found that Abdulkadir played “a key role” in the ICNEO as a resident scholar and 

imam. The court explained that, in his role, Abdulkadir “held significant rights and privileges” 

constituting “a position of trust.” And the court found that he abused that position of trust to 

“facilitate the commission of the offense” in part by accepting money in his roles as imam and 

drafter of the ICNEO’s constitution and fraudulently representing to the government that he was 

merely a volunteer who made no income. The court’s application of a two-level enhancement 

under § 3B1.3 was appropriate in its discretion.

B.

A sentence is substantively unreasonable if it is “too long” because the district court 

“placed too much weight on some of the § 3553(a) factors and too little on others.” United States 

v. Rayyan, 885 F.3d 436, 442 (6th Cir. 2018). Because the court properly calculated the Guidelines 

range of 18 to 24 months’ imprisonment, we presume that Abdulkadir’s within-Guidelines 

sentence of 21 months is reasonable. See Evers, 669 F.3d at 661. Defendant’s substantivereasonableness arguments do not overcome this presumption. 

Abdulkadir argues that the district court failed to adequately account for his “physical and 

mental condition and his role in and massive support by his family and community.” Not so. The 

court acknowledged defendant’s torture in Saudi Arabia; his resulting PTSD and physical ailments 

related to his ankles, knees, and shoulders; and his ADHD diagnosis. Additionally, the court 

recognized that many of his family members wrote letters of support, that he has been twice 

married and twice divorced, that he is a father to four children who reside in Egypt and Texas, and 

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that he is in a relationship with a woman in Ohio who has two children of her own. Neither party 

objected to the court’s description of Abdulkadir’s history and characteristics. 

After the court heard testimony from two of defendant’s witnesses who attested to his good 

character, the court conceded that “some of what was said in support of Mr. Abdulkadir was 

correct, [but] it still doesn’t justify” his conduct. Although the court acknowledged Abdulkadir’s 

“mental health issues,” it found that his “deceit” in his fraudulent activities, particularly when he 

had other income and funds available, justified “a mid range sentence.” 

Thus, contrary to Abdulkadir’s argument on appeal, the court considered all his history and 

characteristics and decided that they did not justify a lower sentence when weighed against his 

criminal conduct. This was not an abuse of discretion, but rather a thorough sentencing analysis 

supported by the record. 

V.

For these reasons, we affirm.

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