Pictured below: Defendants Rory Parker, front left, Qadirah Najeebah Bey, front right, Billie Latrice Poindexter, middle left, Jameelah Aasma Muhammad Bey, middle right, Ira Barnard Dickerson Jr., back left, and Basheer Fard Muhammad, back right, appear in court by video for an arraignment hearing at the Hayward Hall of Justice in Hayward on Oct. 22, 2014. The Black Muslim Temple members have been charged with multiple felony counts ranging from fraud and forgery to identity theft. (Anda Chu/Bay Area News Group)

Defendants Rory Parker, front left, Qadirah Najeebah Bey, front right, Billie Latrice Poindexter, middle left, Jameelah Aasma Muhammad Bey, middle right,

Thomas Peele, Bay Area News Group

HAYWARD — A small library of books about how to make fake IDs and even counterfeit passports was found in a storage unit when authorities arrested a Black Muslim minister, his mother and four others last month on charges they ran a massive fraud ring from a temple in Oakland, lawyers revealed at a court hearing Monday.

“Very reprehensible behavior was being researched,” said Michael Dinning, an attorney for one of the alleged masterminds of the group, Rory Parker, 63. But he insisted that Parker had nothing to do with the books, which were found inside a modular storage unit near Richmond. Two firearms were also found elsewhere during raids on Oct. 21, Dinning said, as he argued for his client’s release from jail.

Alameda County deputy district attorney Ron Smetana said about 30 books on subjects such as how to commit identity theft were recovered. He declined to elaborate outside of court. So did Dinning. The search warrant and a list of items seized remain sealed.

Dinning revealed the books and guns during a hearing where he asked Judge Scott Patton to release Parker from the Santa Rita Jail on her own recognizance. She is being held on $1,035,000 bail on 33 felony charges. Patton refused.

“This is clearly a white-collar crime,” Dinning said as Parker stood behind a partition in Patton’s courtroom that blocked observers from seeing her. “She has no criminal history whatsoever.” When Dinning said that Parker “needed time to grieve” for a 19-year-old man whom she considered a son who died of a drug overdose in August, a woman, apparently Parker, could be heard sobbing from behind the partition. “We beg the court to grant her release.”

But Smetana said Parker remained a threat to the public. He cited the recovered books and the fact that even after it was known earlier this year that her company, BMT International Security, was being investigated following stories in this newspaper about fake credentials BMT had submitted to the Port of Oakland and other agencies in pursuit of public contracts, BMT continued to answer bid advertisements, sending proposals to the cities of Newport Beach and Rancho Cucamonga in Southern California. “She’s simply not going to stop.”

He said that when interviewed, Parker went “on a racist rant” and said her company couldn’t win public contracts legitimately.

Patton rejected Dinning’s plea. “This is not even close to a case where I would release your client on her own recognizance.” Patton also declined to lower Parker’s bail Monday. He said he would consider similar requests in the future.

Parker’s son, Dahood Bey, a disciple of the late Black Muslim Bakery leader Yusuf Bey, and four other defendants — Basheer Fard Muhammad, 62, Qadirah Bey, 39, Jameelah Aasma Muhammad Bey, 39, and Billie Poindexter, 33 — are scheduled for bail hearings before Patton on Friday. It was unclear Monday when the sixth defendant, Ira Dickerson Jr., 53, is next due in court.

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