A person named Zulmai Nazarzai was once jailed for 6 years on one civil contempt-related charge. In 2018, Nazarzai needed to wait more time to present his constitutional rights-related lawsuit before a US federal jury against the OC Sheriff’s Department.
With the acceptance of the two parties, Judge Andrew John Guilford moved the man’s trial slated for November 2018 to April 2019, at the Ronald Reagan Federal Building and Courthouse.
The 2017 lawsuit of Nazarzai alleged that Ben Garcia, the Deputy at the OC Sheriff’s Department, and Sheriff Sandra Sue Hutchens violated the state penal code as they gave him 71-month incarceration. The penal code limited a civil contempt violation-related detention to only up to a year.
As per Nazarzai, Deputy Garcia threatened that he would change Nazarzai’s jailhouse wristband color to blue if he kept complaining regarding his treatment. Accused pedophiles, sex offenders and snitchers wore blue jailhouse wrist bands.
Nazarzai also alleged that the OC Sheriff’s Department did the following to him.
- Put him in a minuscule jail cell known as the hole
- Made the jailhouse exercise yard inaccessible to him for six years
- Denied him religious activities
- Harassed him on the basis of his religious faith
- Confiscated his Muslim prayer rug
Private attorney and OCSD representative Scott Martin argued that the OC Sheriff only followed the orders from Judge Andrew P. Banks of the OC Superior Court. The orders compelled the lengthy detention of Nazarzai. Martin also argued that US federal courts could not interfere with California state verdicts in those kinds of matters due to Supreme Court beliefs.
The dispute emerged due to a missing duffel bag that contained $360,540 as cash.
Back in 2009, the man and his partners in business faced an accusation from the Office of the State Attorney General of a multimillion boiler room scheme in a loan change scam that deceived customers.
Nazarzai took over $426,000 out of an American bank account hours after California’s Attorney General won a restraining order that would freeze the assets of the defendants.
Judge Banks ordered Nazarzai to give up the cash. However, he claimed that he could not surrender it as his girlfriend had lost that stuffed bag as she passed out on a SoCal freeway.
In December 2010, Banks found Nazarzai’s explanation false, asserted that he could access the cash, held the man in contempt of court and jailed him until the closure of his civil case.
After the final judgement in the case, Banks issued another order that required the continued confinement of Nazarzai until the man would surrender the money.
There were attempts to reverse the rulings at the OC Superior Court, the California State Supreme Court and the State Court of Appeals but to no avail.
Banks ordered Nazarzai’s release in November 2016 and asserted that further imprisonment would be a punitive measure rather than a coercive move.
After the initiation of the legal case, Nazarzai agreed to the idea of removing the names of Garcia and Hutchens as defendants.
Nazarzai’s lawyer Thomas Murphy told Guilford that he expected a jury trial for one week in April 2019, even as OCSD and Martin believed that it would require 10 days.
