Federal Judge Reviews Grand Jury Docs In Don Lemon Case: Moslem Family Have Made Similar Demands For Years

By Milton  Allimadi 

Photos: Wikimedia Commons

The case began dramatically. In August 2019, FBI agents arrived at Mehdi Moslem’s home at dawn. According to Mehdi, agents had their guns drawn and ordered him to put his hands on his head.

“What for?” he says he asked.

“Ask your accountant,” he says he was told.

Saaed, his son, was arrested at his neighboring residence the same morning. As they were being transported toward federal court, the Moslems say they heard local news reports describing their arrests as part of a multimillion-dollar tax-fraud scheme and warning people not to do business with their dealership.

The speed with which the arrests were followed by highly publicized allegations in the mass media has remained part of the family’s concern about how the prosecution was handled.

The Justice Department publicly announced the arrests on Aug. 2, 2019, saying the indictment had been unsealed and accusing the father and son of tax and bank fraud. Contemporary local news coverage also reported the arrests.

But the Moslems now raise a basic question: What warrant authorized the arrests?

“I have repeatedly confirmed with the sheriff and law enforcement that there were no arrest warrants in the National Crime Information Center for either myself or Saaed,” Mehdi Moslem said. “There was no warrant to enter our homes and there are no warrants to be found in NCIC.”

For years, the Moslems have also demanded that the government produce and authenticate what they say are the foundational records underlying their prosecution: the original indictment bearing the grand jury’s “True Bill” endorsement, the original grand-jury transcript, an AO-190 grand-jury return form and records establishing the authority for their arrests.

What once might have seemed to some like an unusual demand has gained a striking new point of comparison.

Lawyers for prominent journalist Don Lemon have made a similar demand in his federal case—and a federal judge has now agreed to examine the underlying grand-jury materials.

That development does not connect Lemon’s case to the Moslems’ case, which are entirely unrelated. But for the Moslems, it demonstrates that asking a federal judge to scrutinize the records and proceedings underlying an indictment is not inherently frivolous or extraordinary.

As CNN reported Tuesday, Minnesota federal Judge Laura Provinzino ordered the Justice Department to provide a broad range of grand-jury materials in Lemon’s case, “including presentations by prosecutors and case agents, and the totality of communications prosecutors had with grand jurors that resulted in the indictments.”

Provinzino set a Tuesday deadline for the government to provide presentations by federal prosecutors and case agents relating to grand juries empaneled in January and February, CNN reported. 

The judge also ordered the Justice Department to “provide any introductions, legal instructions, witness testimony, closing arguments, and answers to questions from grand jurors.”

Lemon faces two federal charges arising from allegations that he participated in a disruptive protest at an anti-immigration event at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota. Lemon has said he was there to cover the event as an independent journalist.

CNN reported that judges are increasingly willing to review such records, and the Moslems now hope their own case will receive the scrutiny they have always said it deserves. 

The significance of the development for the Moslems is straightforward.

Their demand for years has been that courts require the government to produce the foundational records behind their prosecution and examine those records for themselves. Now, in a separate federal case involving a nationally prominent journalist, a judge has ordered the Justice Department to produce extensive grand-jury materials for judicial review.

“Lemon’s lawyers asked for the documents or to have a judge review them, and the judge has agreed,” Mehdi Moslem said. “This shows that we have not been making unusual requests. We hope for a similar outcome. The production of the documents and a review.”

The Moslems’ demand goes beyond the grand-jury materials.

As previously reported, the Second Circuit rejected the elder Moslem’s related mandamus request, identified on PACER as Case Index Number 26-1314.

“The court did not address my underlying contention and reporting that no arrest warrants existed. All Courts have access to NCIC. It would only take them a few minutes to check and see that there were no arrest warrants issued nor a warrant to enter our homes,” Mehdi Moslem said.

The Moslems operated Exclusive Motor Sports in Central Valley, New York, selling luxury vehicles including Mercedes-Benz, BMWs and Lamborghinis.

They say their problems began after they acquired the dealership in 2009. They invested heavily in renovating the property and initially lost money, Mehdi says.

He says their accountant, Stephen Strauhs, told them they were making money even when he believed they were losing money. Later, according to Mehdi, a Santander Bank executive warned him that the accountant was submitting questionable tax returns. Strauhs did not respond to a previous Black Star News email seeking comment.

The family hired another accountant who concluded the returns needed to be redone, Mehdi says. The Moslems later learned, they say, that Strauhs had entered into a cooperation agreement with the government and was working with the FBI.

The government ultimately accused the Moslems of concealing dealership income, underreporting taxes and inflating financial statements to obtain bank financing. The Moslems deny that they intentionally defrauded either the government or the banks.

They contend that they actually over-reported income by $424,053.90, resulting in an inflated tax liability. They also point to property appraisals substantially exceeding the loans secured against the property, arguing that the banks were not actually exposed to losses.

A federal jury nevertheless convicted the father and son in June 2021. Mehdi received a sentence of three years and four months; Saaed received eight years.

But the Moslems’ current legal challenge goes beyond disputes over the evidence presented at trial.

Saaed’s Aug. 1, 2026 filing argues that the government has failed to produce the original, certified indictment bearing the grand jury’s “True Bill” endorsement, the original grand-jury transcript and an AO-190 document that he says should exist in the court file.

He also cites forensic evidence that, he alleges, raises questions about the chronology of the records.

The indictment bears a July 30, 2019 date, but the Moslems claim in court papers that its PDF metadata indicates the electronic file was created on Aug. 2, 2019—three days later. He further alleges that the file was modified in December 2025.

Similarly, they claim in court papers that the grand-jury transcript was not created until April 28, 2021—approximately 21 months after the grand-jury proceeding it purports to document.

As previously reported, a Moslem court filing says a witness who inspected the clerk’s file found no original signed True Bill, no AO-190 and no original grand-jury transcript.

The U.S. Department of Justice, the Bureau of Prisons and the U.S. Attorney’s Office were asked by Black Star News to respond specifically to the Moslems’ allegations concerning the arrest warrants, indictment and grand-jury records. They did not respond.

They were also asked about allegations of possible retaliation against Saaed, who claims he was placed in solitary confinement and then transferred to other prisons twice after filing court challenges. No response was received.

During the earlier stage of the prosecution, the Moslems challenged the government’s use of the “right-to-control” theory of fraud, which allowed prosecutors to argue that depriving a victim of economically valuable information could constitute property fraud even without actual financial loss. The Supreme Court later rejected that theory in Ciminelli v. United States.

The Moslems argue that Judge Cathy Seibel relied on the theory during their 2021 trial to exclude evidence concerning loan repayments and the substantial collateral securing their loans that they say was exculpatory. They contend that this evidence would have undermined the government’s case.

They have also challenged statements by Judge Seibel concerning the date on which she ruled on the disputed evidence. In a Jan. 6, 2026 response, Seibel said the court had mistakenly identified May 18, 2021, as the date of the ruling and that it actually occurred May 12.

The Moslems dispute that account. They point to the May 17 transcript, arguing that it demonstrates no final ruling had yet been made, and they allege that portions of the May 18 transcript were subsequently altered or omitted.

A new judicial misconduct complaint filed by Mehdi Moslem against U.S. District Judge Cathy Seibel accuses the judge of repeatedly refusing to require the government to produce and authenticate records that, Moslem argues, are fundamental to the prosecution and imprisonment of him and his son, Saaed.

“I request an immediate investigation into conduct prejudicial to the effective and expeditious administration of the courts,” Moslem states in the complaint. “The issue presented is Judge Seibel’s repeated refusal to require identification, preservation, authentication, and production of the fundamental records claimed to authorize this prosecution, imprisonment, and continuing punishment.”

The complaint is the latest development in the Moslems’ continuing challenge to their federal convictions on tax and bank fraud charges. It centers on documents they claim should establish the legal basis for their arrests, prosecution, convictions and continued imprisonment: arrest warrants, an authenticated original indictment bearing the grand jury’s “True Bill” return, an AO-190 grand-jury return form and the original grand-jury transcript.

The Moslem family is asking the courts to address their claims directly—and says the government has still not produced the disputed materials.

Saaed Moslem has been imprisoned for more than five years and is serving a 96-month sentence, with a projected release date of Dec. 8, 2027. His father, Mehdi, served nearly two years before being released.

The new complaint, filed by the elder Moslem, argues that the disputed records are not a minor matter of paperwork.

“A federal felony prosecution must rest on identifiable and authentic foundational records,” it states. “These include an indictment lawfully returned by a grand jury, a true-bill return, grand-jury return documentation, and lawful records supporting arrest, prosecution, conviction, and detention.”

“For the past year, I have repeatedly asked Judge Seibel to require the Government to produce the original ‘wet-ink’ indictment bearing the grand jury’s true-bill return,” the complaint states. “I have also requested the AO-190 grand-jury return form, authenticated grand-jury materials, and records establishing the authority for arrest and continued detention.”

According to the complaint, none of those documents has been produced despite repeated requests.

“This is not a minor issue of record keeping,” the complaint states. “It concerns the foundation of a federal felony prosecution.”

The complaint asks the judicial council to investigate Judge Seibel’s handling of the Moslems’ previous requests for the original indictment, True Bill return, AO-190 form, grand-jury materials, arrest-warrant information and other foundational prosecution records. It also asks that relevant court materials be preserved.

The complaint further asks the council to determine whether Seibel “engaged in conduct prejudicial to the effective and expeditious administration of the courts by declining to require identification and authentication of the foundational records despite repeated notice of the issues.”

If the allegations are substantiated, Moslem’s complaint calls for “the strongest corrective action,” including ensuring that Seibel has no further involvement in any present or future matter involving Saaed’s case.

The complaint ultimately asks the council to strip Seibel of her “judicial powers” if she “knowingly permitted prosecution, punishment, and imprisonment to continue while refusing to require production and authentication of the basic records claimed to authorize the case.”

For now, however, Saaed Moslem’s habeas petition and Mehdi Moslem’s new judicial misconduct complaint present a narrower question: Can the government produce the arrest warrants, the authenticated original indictment and the original grand-jury record?

In the entirely unrelated Lemon case, his lawyers are making a remarkably similar demand—and a federal judge has agreed that the underlying grand-jury materials warrant judicial scrutiny.

For the Moslems, that is the significance of the Lemon development.

The question is no longer whether a defendant can reasonably ask a federal judge to examine the foundational records underlying an indictment. A federal judge is now doing precisely that in another case.

“The question remains whether the government can produce and authenticate the foundational records that establish the legal basis for our prosecution and Saaed’s continued imprisonment,” Mehdi Moslem said.

“Now that a judge agreed to review documents in Lemon’s case, we are hoping for similar review since we’ve been making our demand for years,” he said.

This is the second in a series examining the prosecution, conviction, ongoing incarceration of Saaed Moslem, and extended probation of Mehdi Moslem.