MADELINE LAYLA SAMAAN-FAY - 2 yo - Sacramento CA

SACRAMENTO—

The cause of death of a Citrus Heights man and his two-year-old daughter remains a mystery pending an autopsy, but the Sheriff's Department confirmed Monday evening that their investigation suggests it was most likely a murder-suicide.

49-year-old Mourad Samaan and his daughter Madeline were found Saturday night in his car near Placerville. Authorities had put out an Amber Alert believing that Madeline was at risk of harm at the hands of Samaan.

Samaan's brother Nabil Samaan said it was a bitter custody battle with Mourad's ex-wife Marcia Fay that caused his brother to break under the stress.
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"He couldn't hold his baby. She tried to prevent him from holding the baby when it was born. It's been a battle for 3 years," said Nabil Samaan.

He blames the court system for taking away visiting rights even though Mourad, also known as "Moni", was a great dad.

Nabil, who is a lawyer, says Fay and her attorney hounded Moni with frivilous court motions and that she was finally given full custody. Nabil says his brother was showing his love for Madeline by standing up for his rights.

"I'm glad he did it. I'm proud of him. Now he's at peace and she's at peace," said Nabil.

But court records show that Moni was ordered to take anger management classes and that sheriff's deputies were called in July when he was reluctant to turn Madeline over during a visit.

But Women Escaping A Violent Environment sees things differently. "It's about power over their victim," said WEAVE Executive Director Beth Hassett in describing classic domestic abusers.

Hassett said abusers often take violent action when there's a change in the relationship.

"Whether the woman chooses to leave, a divorce becomes final, custody changes...these are very dangerous times," said Hassett.

Hassett says domestic relationships are very confusing because nobody knows what happens behind closed doors.

But everyone can agree that it's a tragedy when an innocent two year old girl is killed needlessly.

http://www.fox40.com/news/headlines/ktxl-amber-alert-deaths-determined-as-murdersuicide-20110815,0,4139967.story

Missing Northern California girl, father died of car exhaust


Associated Press

Posted: 08/17/2011 08:00:05 AM PDT
Updated: 08/17/2011 08:00:07 AM PDT

SACRAMENTO
-- The grandfather of a 2-year-old California girl found dead with her
father inside an SUV says the two died of carbon monoxide poisoning
from the car's exhaust pipe.
Makram Samaan told The Sacramento
Bee (http://bit.ly/nnsThQ ) on Monday that his son, Mourad "Moni"
Samaan, killed himself and Layla Samaan-Fay after a bitter custody
battle that began before the child was born.
Their bodies were found inside the 49-year-old father's Toyota 4Runner in rural El Dorado County on Saturday.
The
El Dorado County Sheriff's office has not confirmed the causes of death
and did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
The
father and daughter went missing a day after he learned his wife had
been awarded full custody of their child. Their bodies were discovered
nearly a week later.



http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_18698784?source=rss

Can an attorney be disbarred for saying reprehensible things to a television reporter?


Probably not, according to attorneys who defend other attorneys.
But that’s not stopping a group seeking to take a local lawyer’s license
following a shocking murder-suicide.


The Marin-based Center for Judicial Excellence (CJE) has
announced it will file a complaint with the State Bar of California
demanding the disbarment of Sacramento attorney Nabil Samaan. The group
says Samaan’s license should be taken away because of comments Samaan
made to a reporter that, according to CJE, appear to support his
brother’s decision to allegedly murder his own two-year-old daughter.


The case has roiled the Sacramento area for days.

The victim’s mother is Marcia Fay, a prominent deputy to state
Attorney General Kamala Harris. Fay’s ex-husband, Mourad “Moni” Samaan,
49, disappeared with Madeline Layla Samaan-Fay on Aug. 7 after a
scheduled visit.


This led to a statewide AMBER alert, which was called off on
Sunday when both their bodies were found inside an SUV on land Samaan’s
father owns in El Dorado County, about 50 miles from Sacramento. The
pair died of carbon monoxide poisoning, and police are investigating the
matter as a murder-suicide.


By Monday, members of the Samaan family were speaking to the
press. Nabil Samaan told Fox 40’s Chris Biele: “You can justify and try
to say that Moni wasn’t a good father, and that’s just ignoring the
facts. The fact is that he was an extraordinary father. Better than I’ll
ever be.”


Nabil Samaan added, “I think he did the right thing. I’m proud of him.”


This caused Biele to do a journalistic double-take, asking Nabil
Samaan if that’s really what he meant. “I think justice was done,”
Samaan replied.


As of press time, Nabil Samaan has not replied to a reporter’s
phone call and email seeking comment. Harris’ office declined to comment
on the case.


A spokeswoman with the Bar said she was not allowed to comment on pending disciplinary matters.

The motion rests on what the group says are two violations of the
Bar’s standards of ethics, which require that “an applicant for
admission to the practice of law in California possesses good moral
character.” The CJE’s Kathleen Russell said Samaan’s comments go far
beyond what should be necessary to demonstrate a violation.


“It clearly does not reflect well on the legal profession in California to be saying what he said on television,” Russell said.


The second complaint cites a section on ethical requirement that
requires attorneys “to support the Constitution and the laws of the
United States and California.” Referring to a brutal murder of a toddler
as “justice” fails to meet this standard, Russell says.


The vast majority of complaints that result in disbarment fall
into a few basic categories: A felony conviction, embezzlement of client
funds, failure to disclose a suspended law license to clients, or gross
incompetence or negligence, particularly following an earlier
suspension.


None of these would appear to directly apply in this case. Nabil
Samaan did not represent his brother as an attorney, at least in any
official capacity. Nor did he appear to commit a crime. The Bar
Association website shows no complaints against him.


“It’s incredibly bad taste, but probably protected by free speech
rights,” said Walnut Creek attorney Jerome Fiskin. His firm, Fiskin
Slater LLP, specializes in defending other lawyers in ethics and state
bar cases.


In general, Fiskin said disbarment comes in response to conduct
that affects an ongoing case, or which harms the attorney’s own client.
But he added that Samaan’s comments are still likely to be highly
detrimental to his law practice, particularly given the media and blog
attention given to his comments in recent days.


“What kind of people search out an attorney who, um … yeah,” Fishkin said, not quite able to complete his sentence.


The State Bar has disbarred a growing number of attorneys in
recent years. According to its latest annual disciplinary report, this
is primarily a result of working down a backlog of unaddressed
complaints. The State Bar disbarred 138 lawyers last year, which is as
many as lost their licenses in 2007 and 2008 combined.


“That is so not going to happen,” said attorney Diane Karpman of
the disbarment motion. Her firm, Karpman & Associates of Beverly
Hills, specializes in providing “ethics counsel” and defending attorneys
at the Bar. She added, “Having a wild mouth is not going to get you
disbarred.”


The process of getting through the bar process is exhaustive,
Karpman said. For instance, prospective attorneys must list every
address they’ve ever lived at, and open themselves up to extensive
background searches.


But once an attorney is a member of the bar, it takes very
specific actions to get disbarred. She pointed to “birther” attorney
Orly Taitz. Taitz has said all sorts of bizarre things to the press,
Karpman noted. While there have been complaints made to the California
State Bar about Taitz, Karpman added, they’re all related to her actual
conduct in court or in connection with particular cases she’s been
involved in.


Furthermore, Karpman said, Nabil Samaan would have a good defense
if he ever was called in front of the bar to defend his comments.


“There’s a pretty good argument to be made that the guy is
temporarily impaired,” Karpman said. “Finding out your brother is a
murderer might be a little hard to deal with, and you might say things
without thinking it through.”


According to State Bar records, Nabil Samaan was an undergraduate
at Sacramento State University, got his law degree at the University of
the Pacific’s McGeorge Law School in Sacramento, practices from an
office in Fair Oaks and has been a member of the state bar since 1994.
He’s also an avid bicyclist, and took in a nephew a few years ago who is
now himself a professional cyclist in his early 20s.


In the days since the murder, Nabil Samaan and his father,
85-year-old Dr. Makram Samaan, have repeatedly blamed the incident on
what they say is a corrupt family court system. The elder Samaan is a
psychologist who specializes in divorce and family counseling, and wrote
a master’s thesis on suicide.


While Makram Samaan’s comments have not been as incendiary as his
son’s, he praised Mourad Samaan’s skills as a father and called for
family disputes to be taken “out of the courts.” The family are Coptic
Christians from Egypt. The couple married in 2006, but separated before
their daughter’s birth at the end of 2008 — a birth that Mourad Samaan
reportedly wasn’t initially aware of.


Court records also show that Fay had concerns about her
ex-husband’s mental state, and believed that he was mentally ill.
According to the CJE’s Russell, the court did makes serious mistakes —
by allowing Mourad Samaan as much contact as it did. For instance,
Mourad Samaan refused to return the daughter during a scheduled visit in
July, she said.


“Why would the court give him another unsupervised visit?”
Russell said. “It’s ludicrous. They do it all the time, but it shows the
courts minimize mental health issues.”

http://www.capitolweekly.net/article.php?1=1&_c=zxghoo1n9k95uo&xid=zxf42tkemuh5bp&done=.zxgg0bp80sanoh&_credir=1313635476&_c=zxghoo1n9k95uo

Mourad "Moni" Samaan and his 2-year-old daughter, Madeline Layla Samaan-Fay,
who were found dead Saturday in Samaan's sport-utility vehicle, both suffered gunshot wounds.
Lt. Brian Golmitz, El Dorado County Sheriff's Office spokesman, said an autopsy determined that Moni Samaan,
49, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
He said Madeline also suffered two gunshot wounds, but a determination of her cause of
death is pending a toxicology report because of the possibility of carbon monoxide poisoning.
The child's grandfather had earlier told a reporter that both father and daughter had died from carbon monoxide.
The two were the subject of an Amber Alert issued Friday after officials suspected that she had been abducted by her father.
Samaan received notification Aug. 6 that the girl's mother, Marcia Ann Fay,
46, had been awarded full custody of their daughter, ending a joint custody arrangement.
Samaan's father, Makram Samaan, a psychologist who helps couples mediate disputes and divorces, told The
Bee that his son was spending the day with his daughter when he learned
that a Sacramento County judge had awarded her mother full custody.
Makram Samaan said his son called him to say that he was afraid of losing his
daughter. That night, Moni Samaan took off with Madeline. The toddler's
mother, who was scheduled to pick up her daughter the following morning, reported her missing Aug. 7.
After a call from the FBI, which had issued the
Amber Alert, El Dorado County sheriff's deputies, with the help of a
California Highway Patrol helicopter, searched a wooded 40-acre property
in the Grizzly Flat area that Moni Samaan owned with his brother. They
found the SUV in a clearing beneath pine trees, about 500 yards up a
winding dirt road off String Canyon Road.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18707108

Should this be moved to resolved?