March 2, 2020

USA: First Muslim Woman Elected To Pennsylvania House of Representatives Pleaded Guilty To Felony Charges For Stealing Over $500K From Nonprofit For Mentally Ill, Addicts, Homeless, Seniors.

NBC10 News, Philadelphia
written by Staff
January 23, 2020

Movita Johnson-Harrell was elected to the Pennsylvania General Assembly during a special election in 2019. She resigned a few months later.

Movita Johnson-Harrell, a former Pennsylvania state representative, will spend three months in a Philadelphia jail and finish out the year on house arrest for stealing money from her nonprofit.

Johnson-Harrell, 53, was sentenced on Thursday after she pleaded guilty to felony charges for spending more than $500,000 in funds from the Motivations Education & Consultation Associates on personal affects like clothing, vacations and real estate, the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office said in a news release.

"This Philadelphia community would have been in a better place had this former public official invested MECA’s money into the people who needed the care she promised,” Pa. Attorney General Josh Shapiro said after Johnson-Harrell's court hearing.

The nonprofit serves the homeless, seniors, children, and people with chronic mental illness, intellectual disabilities, and substance abuse disorders.

Johnson-Harrell was recently elected to the Pennsylvania General Assembly. She won a 2019 special election in the 190th Legislative District, which covers parts of West Philadelphia and North Philadelphia. While reacting to the victory, she stated she was the first Muslim woman elected to the Pennsylvania legislature.

She resigned from the legislature in December 2019.

In addition to her time in jail, Johnson-Harrell will spend eight-and-a-half months on house arrest, eleven-and-a-half months on parole and two years on probation. She also agreed to pay restitution to the nonprofit — including surrendering a property to the state.

Johnson-Harrell pleaded guilty to theft by unlawful taking, theft by deception and perjury, which are all felonies. The AG's office said she pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor charges of tampering with public records.
Breitbart News
written by Amy Furr
December 6, 2019

State Rep. Movita Johnson-Harrell (D-PA) was charged Wednesday for allegedly stealing more than $500,000 from a nonprofit organization she founded to serve the mentally ill and those battling addiction.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro filed the charges against Johnson-Harrell which include accusations of perjury and theft, according to ABC 6.

The Democrat, who was also the first Muslim woman elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, reportedly took the funds from the Motivations Education & Consultation Associates (MECA) and spent it on luxury items such as multiple fox fur coats, according to the Daily Wire.

“When corruption erodes the trust that is built between governmental entities and citizens, no one wins,” Shapiro said in a statement Wednesday. “I’ve said time and time again as Attorney General that no one is above the law, no matter their position of power. And today is no different.”

He continued:
Representative Johnson-Harrell continuously diverted Medicaid and social security disability funds from her charity to help Philadelphia’s most vulnerable communities for her own personal use. She spent almost $15,000 on clothing, including online shopping sprees at Ralph Lauren and fox fur coats. She traveled to Mexico, Orlando, Georgia and Maryland on lavish trips costing $16,000 of MECA funds. She spent $2,000 on overdue car payments on her Porsche. Another $4,000 on tuition for a relative. And, she spent almost $20,000 on overdue mortgage payments.
Resident Dinah Harrington of West Philadelphia said she was shocked to learn of the indictment against Johnson-Harrell.

“I seen her a lot on TV, they spoke great things about her…it is very sad to hear about that and I hope things get much better for her and her family,” she commented.

Shapiro also alleged that while the Democrat was illegally spending the nonprofit’s money, the residential homes she opened for those with serious medical needs were forced to shutter their doors due to “uninhabitable conditions.”

“While Johnson-Harrell was lining her pockets with MECA funds, MECA’s residents were living in squalor,” he noted.

The 53-year-old was sworn into office in March after she won a special election in the 190th District. Johnson-Harrell replaced her predecessor, Vanessa Lowery Brown, who resigned amid a bribery scandal, according to ABC 6.

👇 LET US FLASHBACK 👇
Breitbart News
written by Nate Church
March 27, 2019

Democratic Rep. Movita Johnson-Harrell of Philadelphia reportedly said Tuesday she felt her religion was “used against her” by Rep. Stephanie Borowicz’ prayer.

The Philadelphia representative said she was offended by a colleague’s prayer that “at the name of Jesus every knee will bow.” Johnson-Harrell is the first female Muslim member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, sworn in after winning a special election this month.

The prayer was offered just hours before Johnson-Harrell was to be sworn in. “Jesus, you are our only hope,” she prayed, asking forgiveness on behalf of a nation that she said had forgotten Jesus. “At the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess Jesus, that you are Lord,” she said.

House Minority Whip Jordan Harris accused Borowicz of using her faith to “intimidate, demean and degrade” Johnson-Harrell in front of her family, friends, and supporters.

“Let me be clear. I am a Christian. I spend my Sunday mornings in church worshiping and being thankful for all that I have,” Harris said in a statement. “But in no way does that mean I would flaunt my religion at those who worship differently than I do. There is no room in our Capitol building for actions such as this, and it’s incredibly disappointing that today’s opening prayer was so divisive.”

👇 IN OTHER RELATED NEWS 👇
Newsbusters
written by Tim Graham
May 6, 2019

Ryan Saavedra of the Daily Wire did a little Internet searching to reveal the differing "news judgment" on Catholic kids vs. Muslim kids. He tweeted on Saturday:
CNN wrote 23 articles on Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann.

CNN has *not* reported on the kids in Philadelphia who were allegedly singing about chopping people’s heads off.
Remember Chris Cuomo lecturing the Covington kids were "victims of their own choices"...for wearing MAGA hats? But it's not just CNN. Just as we know everyone climbed all over the first small snippet of video somehow indicting the Covington Catholic kids for smirking or doing "tomahawk chops," pretty much everyone on television skipped over the story that sounded so, well, "Islamophobic." It's not hard to conclude that our secular media has a serious loathing of pro-life Catholics, and a serious blind spot on death poetry at Muslim events.

Fox News reported it online:
Disturbing footage of Muslim kids saying they would sacrifice themselves and kill for the "army of Allah" surfaced from an Islamic center in Philadelphia.

The Muslim American Society (MAS) Islamic Center in Philadelphia posted the video to its Facebook page celebrating "Ummah Day" in which young children wearing Palestinian scarves sang and read poetry about killing for Allah and the mosque in Jerusalem.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a watchdog group, alerted Fox News to the video.

"These are not isolated incidents; they are happening in major centers of the country – including in Pennsylvania," MEMRI said in a statement....

One girl talks about martyrs sacrificing their lives without hesitation to conquer Jerusalem.

"We will defend the land of divine guidance with our bodies, and we will sacrifice our souls without hesitation," a second girl says. "We will chop off their heads, and we will liberate the sorrowful and exalted Al-Aqsa Mosque. We will lead the army of Allah fulfilling His promise, and we will subject them to eternal torture."

MAS Philly belongs to the Muslim American Society (MAS), which has 42 chapters in the United States and one in the United Kingdom.
A Nexis search suggests one program did mention the video: Lou Dobbs Tonight on Fox Business on May 3.
DOBBS: Disturbing new video of Muslim children in Philadelphia saying they would sacrifice themselves and kill for the army of Allah. The video from the Muslim American Society Islamic Center, the young girls can clearly be heard saying "we will defend the land of divine guidance with our bodies. We will sacrifice our souls. We will chop off their heads."
Surely, an "objective" reporter could determine that children singing songs about beheading and "eternal torture" is more disturbing than smirking at an Indian. What possible defense do journalists have in suggesting that the Covington kids were a national outrage....compared to this video? They have to fall back on the notion that....it's in Arabic, and maybe it wasn't translated correctly? So our national media can't hire their own translator to check it?

You won't find this story published in the nation's top newspapers, either, and let's single out The Washington Post, which was sued by Sandmann for its one-sided Covington coverage. The Post website carried an Associated Press dispatch by Jennifer McDermott:
A video showing children speaking in Arabic about sacrifice and chopping off heads wasn’t vetted before being posted on the Facebook page for the Muslim American Society’s Philadelphia chapter, and it does not represent their values, the executive director of the national group said Sunday.

Executive Director Ayman Hammous said the Muslim American Society learned of the content of the video after the Middle East Media Research Institute posted a translation Friday. The society issued a statement calling the video “disturbing” and condemning the words used in it....

The Philadelphia chapters of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Anti-Defamation League also condemned the words used in the video. Iftekhar Hussain, chairman of the council chapter, said Islamic tradition “categorically rejects either speech or actions that harm in any way our Jewish brothers and sisters.” The ADL says that children should not be indoctrinated to hate because “the only chance for a peaceful future is to teach our children to pursue peace.”

Posted by Princess Mononoke at 5:51 PM

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