U.S. federal judge Otis D. Wright has reversed an earlier decision and denied Ramon ‘Hushpuppi’ Abbas’s request to view case files of the Juma case, where disgraced police officer Abba Kyari was an accessory to the crimes committed.

This is contained in documents from the United States District for the Central District of California. 

“For good cause shown, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED THAT: Defendant’s request to continue the sentencing date from September 19, 2022, at 1:30 p.m. to November 3, 2022, at 1:30 p.m. for is DENIED,” Mr Wright ordered on Thursday. “Defendant’s request for the government to produce all Juma case (USA v. Juma 2:21 cr-00203-RGK) discovery to Mr Abbas is DENIED.”

Earlier on Thursday, Mr Wright had granted Mr Abbas’s request to view the case files according to court filings reported by Peoples Gazette. 

“Defendant’s request for the government to produce all Juma Case (USA v. Juma 2:21-cr-00203-RGK) discovery to Mr Abbas is GRANTED,” the document had said. 

The Gazette reported a stalemate between Louis Shapiro, Mr Abbas’s attorney, and federal prosecutors over a proposed delay in the trial ahead of sentencing on Monday. 

Court filings revealed Mr Shapiro’s assertion that Mr Abbas would be unable to prepare for his sentencing hearing without all the documents relating to the Juma case ahead of the sentencing hearing. 

In December 2019, Mr Abbas conspired with Kenyan national Abdulrahman Imraan Juma and others to defraud a Qatari company and its owner. Mr Abbas posed as a Wells Fargo Bank employee, and both men opened a bank account at Wells Fargo Bank in Canoga Park, California.

The document noted that between December 19 and 24, 2019, Messrs Abbas and Juma conned their victim into paying $330,000 to fund an “investor’s account” to facilitate a $15 million loan.

Disgraced police officer Abba Kyari had been indicted in the Juma case by the government’s investigation, named among five of Mr Abbas’ co-conspirators in a $1.1million fraud charge.

Mr Abbas hopes to reduce his impending jail sentence from 11 years as suggested by prosecutors. He had employed the services of Washington-based top criminal defence attorney John Iweanoge, but Mr Iweanoge’s application to practice across state lines was struck out from court records over inconsistencies in the filing. 

Mr Abbas has been in custody since his arrest in Dubai and transfer to the United States in June 2020. Intelligence agencies noted that his crimes were money laundering, cyber fraud, hacking, criminal impersonating, scamming individuals, banking fraud and identity theft committed outside the United Arab Emirates.

In July 2021, Mr Abbas pleaded guilty to multimillion-dollar fraud charges as part of a plea bargain he entered with the U.S. authorities, court documents seen by Peoples Gazette said.

Mr Abbas admitted to laundering money and orchestrating fraudulent attacks on a Premier League club, an American law firm, a UK law firm and other schemes, including recruiting North Korean state-sponsored hackers to collaborate with his fraudulent projects.