California terrorist attacker’s relatives let government seize $275,000 life insurance payout

The mother and sister of San Bernardino terrorist attacker Syed Rizwan Farook have given up their legal fight with the federal government for the proceeds of two life insurance policies that Farook purchased shortly before he and his wife killed 14 people and wounded 22 others at the Inland Regional Center in 2015.

Farook received a $25,000 policy in 2012 as a benefit from his job as an inspector for the San Bernardino County Division of Environmental Health, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office court filing that sought to seize the proceeds because the government considered the money a fruit of a crime. Then in 2013, Farook purchased a $250,000 policy from the Minnesota Life Insurance Co.

By that time, starting in 2011, Farook and Enrique Marquez Jr. had already begun plans to carry out a terrorist attack, and had discussed martyrdom, Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank D. Kortum wrote in the filing.

On Dec. 2, 2015, Farook, 28, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 29, residents of Redlands, opened fire on a Division of Environmental Health training session and Christmas party at the IRC. The couple died in a gun battle with police later that day.

Minnesota Life paid out the policies, but the government petitioned to seize the money, which since 2016 had been held by the U.S. District Court in Riverside.

“Plaintiff alleges that the policy benefits were derived from a federal crime of terrorism against the United States, citizens or residents of the United States, or their property, rendering them subject to forfeiture to the United States,” Kortum wrote.

In October, the beneficiaries, Farook’s mother, Rafia Farook, and his sister, Saira Khan, signaled that they wanted to end the legal tug-of-war over the money. On Dec. 19, 2023, Judge Jesus G. Bernal ordered the clerk to write a check for $280,756.17, plus any accrued interest, to the U.S. Marshal’s Service for delivery to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles.

“I think my client wanted closure, and litigation would have opened wounds she didn’t want opened,” Rafia Farook’s attorney, Ron Cordova, said in an interview Wednesday, Jan. 3.

A trial over the money, Cordova explained, would have involved revisiting Syed Farook’s acceptance of radical Islamic ideology at least 10 years before the terrorist attack.

Rafia Farook, also known as Rafia Sultana Shareef, had her own role to consider. In 2021, she pleaded guilty to destroying evidence after she shredded her son’s handwritten plans for the attack.

It was unclear Thursday how the government will use the life insurance money.

The insurance case was but one of several borne out of the shooting.

• Rafia Farook, of Redlands, was sentenced to six months of home confinement and three years of probation on Feb. 11, 2021, for destroying the plans, which included a to-do list leading up to the attack and a diagram of the IRC conference room. Prosecutors, who sought jail time for Farook, did not allege in court that she knew about the plot.

• Marquez, of Riverside, was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on Oct. 23, 2020. Marquez purchased and supplied the assault rifles and bomb-making materials to Syed Rizwan Farook that he and Malik used to wage their attack. Marquez pleaded guilty to providing material support and resources to terrorists and making false statements on the federal firearms purchase form when he said the rifles were for himself — not Farook. Prosecutors did not allege in court that Marquez knew about the IRC plot.

• Russian-born Mariya Chernykh was sentenced to three years of probation and no jail time on May 17, 2021, for her role in a sham marriage intended to gain her permanent U.S. residency – a scheme discovered during the investigation into the massacre. In July 2009, Chernykh and her sister – then Tatiana Gigliotti – came to the U.S. on three-month visas and never left. In 2014, Ontario resident Chernykh married Marquez, who was paid $200 a month to go along with it, enabling Chernykh to apply for permanent U.S. residency.

• Syed Raheel Farook, Syed Rizwan Farook’s brother, was sentenced to three years’ probation on Nov. 9, 2020, after he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy for his role in the marriage fraud scheme, which included him pretending that Chernykh and Marquez lived at his Corona home.

• Tatiana Farook, the former Tatiana Gigliotti who married Raheel, was sentenced to three years probation on Feb. 5, 2021, after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit immigration fraud in the marriage scheme, which included buying a $50 wedding ring for Marquez.

None of those involved in the marriage fraud case were believed to have known about the IRC attack in advance, prosecutors said.