Five more Yassine suspects sentenced by federal judge

Terms range from 40 months in U.S. prison to probation.

Five people linked to a company that ran nine now-closed downtown Austin nightclubs were sentenced this week in federal court for their involvement in a crime ring responsible for selling drugs and weapons and laundering hundreds of thousands of dollars.

They are among the last of 10 defendants to learn their fates after being arrested in March 2012 following a multi-year investigation of Yassine Enterprises by the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service.

Of the five, Edgar Orsini, who faced drug charges, got the stiffest sentence: 40 months in federal prison followed by eight years’ probation. U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks also fined him $600.

Drug and weapons charges landed Nizar Hakiki a prison term of 18 months and a $3,600 fine. Upon release, he’ll be on probation for three years.

Amar Araf and Sami Derder also faced drug charges and were both sentenced to one year and one day behind bars, followed by four years’ probation. Derder must pay a $4,800 fine, while Araf was not fined.

Marisse Ruales, personal assistant to Hussein Ali “Mike” Yassine, the company’s founder and president, was given three years’ probation and a $6,000 fine.

On covert recordings made by FBI agents, Ruales was shown cutting checks written on several different Yassine Enterprises bank accounts in an attempt to help Yassine conceal his efforts to launder cash he believed to be drug proceeds.

Yassine and his two brothers, Hadi Yassine and Mohammed Ali “Steve” Yassine, as well as two other defendants, have previously been sentenced by Sparks. Mike Yassine was given 12 years and seven months and a $60,000 fine; Hadi Yassine will spend five years behind bars and must pay a $30,000 fine; and Steve Yassine was sentenced to one year and one day in prison.

The three brothers are not U.S. citizens, Sparks previously said, and there’s a chance they might be deported upon their release from prison.

The remaining two defendants, Alejandro Melendrez and Karim Faiq, previously took plea deals offered by federal prosecutors.

Melendrez got 46 months in federal prison, and Faiq is set to be sentenced by Sparks on March 22. DALLAS — A television station broadcast a leaked copy of a terrified woman’s call to 911 last summer just before she was killed in a case that has prompted widespread changes in the way police respond to reported domestic disturbances.

The lack of urgency by police to 32-yearold Deanna Cook’s Aug. 17 call caused a public outcry and led to the punishment of dispatchers and the review of police procedures.

Dallas police have declined to release the recording but a copy was leaked to Dallas station WFAA, which broadcast a portion of it Wednesday.

Cook is heard in the background pleading with her attacker not to harm her. She never spoke with the dispatcher after she called 911 on her cellphone because she was too busy frantically begging for her life.

The pressing nature of the call was not relayed to police by the dispatcher. Officers went to Cook’s home nearly an hour later, found nothing amiss and left. It wasn’t until two days later that her body was discovered in an overflowing bathtub after her family had called 911 expressing concern for her safety.

Cook’s former husband, Delvecchio Patrick, was later arrested and charged with killing her. He has not entered a plea in the case and remains in custody on $500,000 bail.

Cook had called 911 several times in the months before her death to express concern about Patrick and what she described as his threatening, violent behavior.

The operator who handled Cook’s call was suspended for not clearly stating to officers the urgent situation. She later resigned. An operator who spoke to Cook’s mother two days later was fired for telling her she could not immediately report her daughter missing.