One day as Bijan and I sat next to each other in the prayer room, Karimi’s pants, specifically its brand, caught our eye causing us to once again erupt in uncontrollable laughter. Why one would produce pants under the ridiculous brand name of “mama” was beyond us but there we had it right in front of our eyes. We couldn’t wait to be dismissed so we could point it out to others and even Karimi himself. Much to our surprise no one else seemed to even acknowledge our observation and in response to our question of what brand pants Karimi was wearing, some responded, “Lois.” Fed up with the lack of desired reactions, I finally went up to Karimi and asked him what brand his pants were. While he probably did not know where I was heading with this line of questioning, he simply smiled and said, “They are Sadr brand.” Bijan and I followed him around a bit to determine why no one else could see what was so clear to us. It baffled us that not only everyone was reading the brand completely wrong...
Mohammad Rafikian, aka Mo Kian, 54, Queens, New York, was re-sentenced to a term of 16 to 50 years in prison after being tried again and re-convicted of holding himself out as an attorney and a registered investment advisor and then stealing $5 million from seven individuals through fraudulent real estate and capital investment transactions. Rafikian was the chairman and chief executive officer of First Investors Capital Corporation, Astoria, Queens. He also occasionally worked as a paralegal for the law firm of Marcus & Associates, which maintained an office as a subtenant at Rafikian’s Astoria office. It was the named partner of this law firm whose identity that Rafikian assumed. Rafikian was convicted in August 2014, of one count of first-degree grand larceny, seven counts of second-degree grand larceny, six counts of second-degree criminal impersonation, three counts of first-degree scheme to defraud and three counts of practicing law without a license following a tw...