She was a felon who was addicted to drugs. Then she became a lawyer. (and wants to primary Omar) [View all]

At the Hennepin County Courthouse in Minneapolis, immediately after her client’s murder case was dismissed, attorney Sarah Gad ran into Chief Judge Toddrick Barnette. She knew him because nearly a decade ago, he was the presiding judge when she was a defendant facing drug charges in his courtroom. She approached him in the courthouse lobby on July 19, and reintroduced herself. Right away, her face was familiar to him.

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Like many people who become addicted to opioids, Gad’s drug dependency began with a doctor’s prescription in 2012 after she was injured in a car crash. She was a medical school student at the University of Pittsburgh on a full scholarship at the time, and she had a whole world of opportunities ahead of her. After the accident, Gad had several broken ribs, an ankle injury and a leg fracture. She recalled being in excruciating pain. To alleviate the agony, her doctors prescribed her several medications, including oxycodone. There were no warnings she could become addicted.

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She dropped out of medical school, and between 2013 and 2015, Gad was repeatedly arrested for nonviolent drug offenses. She was in and out of jail and rehab but kept going back to drugs whenever she got out. “Every prescription that I forged came with five or six different charges,” she said, explaining that in addition to forgery, she was charged with identity theft, insurance fraud and acquisition of controlled substances. “I was facing 90 felony charges at one point.”

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She served several stints in jail — ranging from 24 hours to seven months — during which she was badly beaten by other inmates, she said, and also sexually assaulted. “I was really brutalized in that jail,” Gad said, referring specifically to Cook County Jail in Chicago. At the time of her arrest, she was visiting family in Chicago for Thanksgiving. “The correctional officers were just letting this happen.”

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She started taking Suboxone on July 9, 2015, to slowly wean herself off opioids, and has been sober since. As she gradually recovered, Gad sued the Cook County Jail in Chicago, alleging she was physically and sexually assaulted during a 27-day stay in 2013. Gad, who was represented by Chicago lawyer Kathleen Zellner, agreed to a settlement in the case in 2017, with the county paying her $380,000. Zellner then offered Gad a job to work with her on medical malpractice lawsuits.

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Since being sworn in to the Minnesota Bar on Aug. 23, 2022, Gad has been working as an attorney in Minneapolis, specializing in criminal defense — including nonviolent drug convictions — and civil rights violations. So far, none of her cases have gone to trial, as she works to get them dismissed or diverted before that point.

More..

https://wapo.st/3E84EFJ

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The strib story

https://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-attorney-is-first-to-start-2024-dfl-primary-run-against-rep-omar/600297312/

"If I was thrilled with what Ilhan Omar was doing, I would not be running for Congress," said Gad, a Minnesota native who is Muslim. She said that her parents are immigrants from Egypt, and that she earned her license to practice law in Minnesota last summer.

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The way I look at it, she has been in Minneapolis for only one year. She may grew up here, but spent her adult life in Medical School in Pittsburgh and then all over. As much as I would like to see Omar gone, what can Gad offer to the local communities?