Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, the lead defendant in an historic genital cutting trial, was freed Tuesday on a $4.5 million bond, secured by generous friends. After seven months in jail, a doctor charged with cutting the genitals of numerous minor girls as part of a religious tradition was freed Tuesday after16 ofher friends offered…
BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. (AP) — Michigan attorney Shannon Smith only defends people accused of Michigan’s most serious sex crimes. That’s on purpose. “I like the stakes being high,” Smith said in a September interview at her office in Bloomfield Hills, surrounded by pictures of her husband and four children. She turns away…
There’s an old proverb that warns “better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie.” That cautionary tale is at work with the realization that female genital mutilation landed on American shores and is growing throughout the United States. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that more…
Doctor Freed Last Week on $4.5 Million Bond,While Two Mothers of 7-Year-Old Girls Indicted on Charges Washington, D.C.—A doctor charged with mutilating the genitals of young girls in Michigan is out on bond, after a judge released her from pre-trial detention last week. The $4.5 million bond was met by 17 of…
(AP) – A Detroit-area doctor charged with performing genital mutilation on girls in a Muslim sect will be released from jail as she awaits trial. A judge on Tuesday was persuaded to grant bond to Dr. Jumana Nagarwala after supporters pledged to pay more than $4 million if she flees…
Now that I have your attention… Federal officials arrested two Muslim women who drove from their Minnesota homes to Detroit to subject their seven-year-old daughters to the horrific — and illegal in the U.S. — practice of female genital mutilation, or female circumcision. “Haseena Halfal, 34, of Plymouth, Minnesota, and…
DETROIT — Two Minnesota mothers have been charged in an investigation of genital mutilation in an Indian American Muslim sect, months after bringing their daughters to a Detroit-area clinic. A new indictment was unsealed Sept. 14 in Detroit federal court, raising the number of defendants to eight. The eight include…
Recently Michigan became the 26th state to ban female genital mutilation. It has been a crime under federal law since 1966, punishable by up to five years in prison. Michigan’s law imposes harsher penalties than the federal law. The Michigan legislation was preceded by the news that Michigan doctors had…
This fall, a United States district judge will hear a landmark case: For the first time, the federal government is pursuing a case of female genital mutilation on American soil. Defense lawyers have said they will argue a freedom of religion defense – setting the stage for an explosive test…
On July 19, U.S. District Court Judge Bernard Friedman denied bail for Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, a physician, as the Detroit Free Press reported, “accused of cutting the genitals of two Minnesota girls as part of a religious procedure.” According to the court, Nagarwala may have subjected as many as 100…