New York-based charity which, in 2003, was charged with conspiring to illegally transfer funds to Iraq
Help the Needy, Inc. (HTN), along with its sister organization Help the Needy Endowment (HTNE), are unlicensed, unregistered Syracuse, New York-based Islamic charity organizations that were founded in 1994 to solicit money "for the starving and oppressed people of Iraq." In February 2003, both entities and four individuals affiliated with them were charged by a federal grand jury with "conspiring to transfer funds to Iraq in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act."
The conspirators included Dr. Rafil Dhafir, a Fayetteville, New York oncologist and Iraqi-born naturalized American citizen who helped establish the organization; HTN Executive Director Ayman Jarwan, a Jordanian citizen who was born in Saudi Arabia and now resides in Syracuse; Osameh Al Wahaidy, also a Jordanian citizen from Jericho who was a Muslim prison chaplain and a math instructor at the State University of New York at Oswego; and Mehar Zagha, a Jordanian resident living in Amman, Jordan, where he maintained two accounts at the Jordan Islamic Bank, into which HTN money was funneled. Dhafir, Jarwan and Al Wahaidy were arrested in Syracuse on February 26, 2003.
In addition to the conspiracy charges, Dhafir, Zagha, and the two charities were charged with twelve counts of money laundering and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Federal investigators say the men used HTN and HTNE to funnel more than $2.7 million through the Jordan Islamic Bank. Dhafir was also charged with ordering checks of up to $100,000 to be cut for individuals located in Baghdad. The charges stemmed from a three-year federal investigation of the men and the two entities.
In April 2004, a federal grand jury indicted Dhafir on ten new charges including mail fraud and wire fraud. He was accused of falsely telling donors that their money would be used to help feed starving children in Iraq, while he secretly re-invested their money in his own business, including $300,000 for income-producing properties in Syracuse.
In April 2003, Jarwan and Al Wahaidy pled guilty to conspiring to circumvent U.S. sanctions regulations by sending money to Iraq. Priscilla Dhafir, Rafil Dhafir's wife, also pled guilty to lying to investigators about her husband's medical practice. In February 2005, a jury found Mr. Dhafir guilty on 59 out of 60 federal charges against him after a 15-week trial. According to the Justice Department, very little of the more than $4 million raised by HTN over a nine-year period was used to aid the people of Iraq.
