Exhibit 1 (Schretlen Report) — USA v. Qureshi (Dkt. 29.1)

Record facts

U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland · No. 1:22-cr-00330-JKB · Doc. 29-1 · 2023-11-21 · Docket on CourtListener

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David J. Schretlen, PhD, LLC 
Board Certified in Clinical Neuropsychology 
American Board of Professional Psychology 
Fellow, American Psychological Association 
 
Post Office Box 22431 
Baltimore, Maryland 21203 
(410) 967-4023  
 
 
 
November 19, 2023 
Paul A. Riley, Esquire 
Assistant United States Attorney 
36 South Charles Street, 4th Floor 
Baltimore, Maryland 21201 
 
Re: United States of America v. Ayza Qureshi  
 
In the U.S. District Court for the District of MD 
 
Criminal No. RDB-22-0330 
Dear Mr. Riley, 
 
As you know, Ayaz Qureshi is a 54-year-old (DOB 6/11/1969), twice-married, Pakistani immigrant 
who pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud conspiracy. He later filed a motion to withdraw his 
guilty plea. You asked me to review the records below and report my opinions regarding the 
defendant’s claim that he was unable to understand the nature of the charge against him or the plea 
agreement into which he entered, along with my opinions regarding the psychological assessment 
and conclusions expressed by defense expert Michael Mintz, PsyD. Based on my review, I formed 
the opinions enumerated at the end of this report to a reasonable neuropsychological certainty. 
 
Records reviewed: 
1. 
USAO-000001 - Baltimore County Police Department Report of Confidential Investigation by 
Detective Eric Heyman (5/13/2022) 
2. 
Charging Document in re: United States v. Ayaz Qureshi (dated 6/27/2022; filed 9/19/2022)  
3. 
Plea Agreement in re: United States v. Ayaz Qureshi (signed 9/14/2022) 
4. 
Court transcript of Guilty Plea Hearing in above-captioned case (held on 10/14/2022) 
5. 
Defendant’s Motion to Withdraw Guilty Plea in re: United States v. Ayaz Qureshi, through 
counsel Jonathan Y. Ai (filed 8/29/2023) 
6. 
Government’s Response in Opposition to Defendant’s Motion to Withdraw Guilty Plea and 
Government’s Motion to Find Defendant in Breach of the Plea Agreement (filed 9/19/2023) 
7. 
Report of Competency Evaluation, Michael Mintz, PsyD (2/23/2023) plus copy of raw test data 
obtained from in-person evaluation on 2/2/2023 but no handwritten notes or other record of 
follow-up telehealth interview via Zoom (undated) 
8. 
Curriculum Vita of Michael Mintz, PsyD 
9. 
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-IV) test manual 
Case synopsis: 
 
According to charging documents from United States Attorney for the District of Maryland, Mr. 
Ayaz Qureshi was charged with one count of wire fraud conspiracy, 18. U.S.C. § 139 and notified 
that the government would seek forfeiture as part of any sentence in accordance with 18 U.S.C. §§ 
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924(d), 981(a)(1)(C), and 982(a)(2)(A), 21 U.S.C. § 853(p), and 28 U.S.C. § 2461(c) as a result of 
his conviction of Count One. 
 
On 9/16/2022, Mr. Qureshi signed a plea agreement stating that he had reviewed every part of it 
carefully with his attorney, understood it, and voluntarily agreed to its terms. His attorney, Thomas 
Maronick, Jr., Esquire, also stated that he had reviewed the agreement with Mr. Qureshi, who 
understood and accepted its terms, and whose entry into the agreement was informed and voluntary. 
Attached to the plea agreement was a brief (~1½ page) stipulation of facts that both men signed. 
The stipulation of facts states that the defendant and co-conspirator A.S. conspired to and engaged 
in a scheme to defraud a bank in order to obtain a fraudulent loan for Yazee, Inc., Mr. Qureshi’s 
purported business, under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) of the Coronavirus Aid Relief 
and Economic Security Act. Mr. Qureshi fraudulently received $250,723 through this scheme. 
 
In brief, the stipulation of facts states that on 3/14/2021, co-conspirator A.S., with help from Mr. 
Qureshi, submitted a fraudulent PPP loan application to Bank 1 for Yazee, Inc. but that Yazee, Inc. 
actually had no employees and was not operating in any legitimate capacity. The loan application 
contained multiple misrepresentations. These included the claim that Yazee had 16 employees and 
an average monthly payroll of $100,289. The application included a false IRS Form 940 stating that 
payments to all Yazee, Inc. employees totaled $1,203,471.52 for 2019. In fact, Yazee, Inc. did not 
pay wages to any employee in 2019. Based on the false representations made on behalf of Qureshi 
as the owner of Yazee, Inc., a PPP loan for $250,753 was funded and distributed by Bank 1 on 
3/22/2021 to a Wells Fargo bank account in the name of Yazee, Inc. that Qureshi controlled. The 
stipulation of facts further states that Mr. Qureshi agreed to pay A.S. a kickback for his work on 
submitting the false application. After Mr. Qureshi received the loan funds, he provided A.S. with 
eight checks totaling $75,000, or approximately 30% of the loan. On each check, Mr. Qureshi left 
the payee blank, which A.S. and others filled in to successfully deposit the checks. 
 
Proceeds from a PPP loan were required to be used only for certain allowed business expenses, 
including payroll costs, mortgage interest, rent, and utilities. Accordingly, in an attempt to make it 
appear that PPP loan funds were being used for legitimate purposes, on 6/22/2021, Mr. Qureshi 
signed an agreement with a payroll processor to provide services to Yazee, Inc. Thereafter, at the 
direction of Mr. Qureshi, the payroll processor withdrew money from the Wells Fargo Yazee, Inc. 
bank account and made sham payments totaling $144,647.21 from the PPP funds to Mr. Qureshi, 
his wife, and other associates. Mr. Qureshi communicated with employees the payroll processor 
concerning purported Yazee, Inc. employees to be added and removed from the payroll. Mr. 
Qureshi made no payments to the for the PPP loan, which was ultimately forgiven. 
 
At a hearing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland before the Honorable Richard D. 
Bennett on 10/14/2022, Assistant United States Attorney (ASUA) Paul Riley read aloud the entire 
stipulation of facts, and the Court gave Mr. Qureshi a written copy to follow along. After Mr. Riley 
finished reading it, the Court asked Mr. Qureshi if it accurately summarized the facts of the case. 
Mr. Qureshi replied, “Yes, your honor.” The Court next asked Mr. Qureshi if he committed the 
crime as read by Mr. Riley, and Mr. Qureshi again replied, “Yes, your honor.” The Court then asked 
Mr. Qureshi how he wanted to plead to the one-count criminal charge against him, and Mr. Qureshi 
replied, “Guilty.” Throughout the hearing, in response to direct questions by the Court, Mr. Qureshi 
repeatedly confirmed that he spoke and understood English well enough to understand the charges 
against him, follow and participate in the proceedings, and communicate with his attorney. Mr. 
Qureshi told the Court that he had not been threatened or forced to coerced to plead guilty to the 
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charge against him. The Court ultimately found Mr. Qureshi competent and capable of entering an 
informed plea, competent and capable of understanding English, and aware of the nature of the 
charge against him and the consequences of pleading guilty. 
 
Nearly four months after this hearing, at the behest of his attorney, Jonathan Ai, Esq., Mr. Qureshi 
went to Michael Mintz, PsyD for a “psychological evaluation to assess his cognitive functioning as 
it pertains to the crimes of which he has been accused” and whether Mr. Qureshi had the “cognitive 
or reading skills to comprehensively understand the arrangements of his plea bargain.” After several 
hours of cognitive testing on 2/1/2023, Dr. Mintz saw Mr. Qureshi a second time on 2/6/2023 via 
Zoom. Neither the assessment procedures nor any handwritten notes of this second encounter were 
found for review. Mr. Qureshi’s attorney provided a copy of the raw data from Dr. Mintz’s testing 
for review, meaning that Dr. Mintz sent the raw data directly to the attorney who hired him. 
 
On his examination, Dr. Mintz described Mr. Qureshi as well-oriented to person, place, and time, 
friendly, and cooperative. His mood was neutral/normal, and his affect matched his mood. He spoke 
with normal pitch, rate, and volume. He displayed no signs of disordered thinking. Dr. Mintz stated 
that Mr. Qureshi answered questions in an open and forthcoming, though occasionally tangential, 
manner. He noted that Mr. Qureshi had trouble understanding some interview questions and giving 
concrete details about his educational history and the dates or ages when he experienced various 
events. Dr. Mintz stated that Mr. Qureshi was born and raised as the youngest of eight siblings in 
Lahore, Pakistan mainly by his mother because his father lived elsewhere for work. Dr. Mintz stated 
that Mr. Qureshi’s first language is Urdu, but he did not document any attempt to assess Mr. 
Qureshi’s literacy/proficiency in Urdu or determine when and how proficiently he learned English. 
This oversight reflects a striking lack of culturally competent clinical neuropsychological practice. 
 
Mr. Qureshi apparently told Dr. Mintz that he was physically abused by his mother, had learning 
problems, and only attended school inconsistently for “a few years” before he “dropped out” to 
begin working for his brother-in-law around age 14 or 15. A year or two later, his brother and 
brother-in-law reportedly helped Mr. Qureshi start his own business. Dr. Mintz wrote that Mr. 
Qureshi came to the United States with his first wife, who was a U.S. citizen. After their marriage 
ended in divorce, Mr. Qureshi returned to Pakistan in 2004, where he met and then married his 
current wife, Sarwat Naheed, a few days later. Theirs was an arranged marriage. Mr. Qureshi then 
returned to the United States. His wife remained in Pakistan until 2008, when she also immigrated 
to the U.S. with their two oldest children, joining him in Pasadena, Maryland. The couple had a 
third child in 2013. Ms. Naheed told Dr. Mintz that their second child, a girl, has autism spectrum 
disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Ms. Naheed thinks Mr. Qureshi “has the same 
thing.” She also said that “everything changed” for him after his brother was murdered in 2006. 
According to Dr. Mintz, she thinks that the defendant was “pressured into” signing documents for 
the PPP loan application, that he is overly trusting of others, and that he will “believe anything.” 
 
On testing, Dr. Mintz reported that Mr. Qureshi scored 46/50 on the first trial of the Test of Memory 
Malingering (TOMM). This is above the cutoff (<41/50) that is typically interpreted as showing 
feigned impairment. Dr. Mintz concluded that it meant Mr. Qureshi very likely “put forth his best 
effort on all testing measures he attempted.” This is like saying that if a driver did not crash, then he 
very likely drove to the best of his ability all along the way. Dr. Mintz also claimed that the tests he 
administered were normed in the United States using samples that include adults from South Asia 
(including Pakistan) in numbers that approximate their proportion of the U.S. population. Dr. Mintz 
was unsure if the normative sample included people who spoke Urdu as their primary language. In 
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fact, only persons who spoke English as their primary language were included in the normative 
sample for the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-IV).1 On the WAIS-IV, Mr. Qureshi 
produced a Full Scale IQ of 75, which is borderline. He showed much better nonverbal (PRI = 96; 
average) than verbal (VCI = 72, borderline) intelligence, low average working memory (WMI = 
86), and abnormal processing and psychomotor speed (PSI = 59). Dr. Mintz concluded the Mr. 
Qureshi is a man of “borderline intelligence,” at least in terms of his verbal intellect. Dr. Mintz 
opined that the defendant likely would have done better if he were tested in Urdu, but he offered no 
estimate of how much better he might have done. Dr. Mintz also tested Mr. Qureshi’s written and 
oral language skills and his mastery of basic academic skills, such as reading, spelling, and 
writing—all in English. Dr. Mintz compared Mr. Qureshi’s performance to native-English-speaking 
American adults and reported that many of his language and academic skills are equivalent to those 
of 6- to 8-year-old American children. In the Summary and Impressions section of his report, Dr. 
Mintz repeatedly described Mr. Qureshi’s lowest test scores as signifying “impairments” or 
“deficits.” Dr. Mintz repeated equated abnormal and borderline test performance with brain and 
cognitive dysfunction, without ever noting that Mr. Qureshi’s worst test performances could have 
been due to being tested in a foreign language, perhaps combined with other factors. Dr. Mintz did 
not make any formal diagnosis. He remarked, “Mr. Qureshi “may meet diagnostic criteria for 
attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (though further testing would be necessary to 
confirm the diagnosis).” The mostly widely used questionnaires used to assess this take than 15 
minutes to complete and can be completed by the examinee, a knowledgeable informant, or both. 
 
While Dr. Mintz highlighted Mr. Qureshi’s worst cognitive test scores, he did not mention any of 
the test items the defendant passed. Despite being tested in English, Mr. Qureshi repeated up to six 
digits forward (6-1-9-4-7-3). While his overall score on the WAIS-IV Information subtest was at the 
low end of average, Mr. Qureshi correctly stated the temperature at which water boils and who 
Mahatma Gandhi was. He mistakenly thought that George Washington was president of the United 
States during our Civil War and did not know who wrote Hamlet or who Sacagawea was. Despite 
his wife’s report that Mr. Qureshi’s working memory is worse than 99.9% of men his age, he solved 
several mental arithmetic word problems promptly and accurately. One such question is as follows: 
“There are 25 pieces of chewing gum in one pack. How many pieces are there in eight packs?” He 
gave the correct answer in less than 30 seconds. On many tests, Mr. Qureshi missed easier items 
while passing more difficult ones. In my experience, this is typical of persons who acquire English 
as a second language, especially those who acquire it after childhood. Thus, Mr. Qureshi misspelled 
the word “saw” as “sow,” but he correctly spelled “manager” and “electric.” Many of his misspelled 
words were phonetically correct, another hallmark of acquiring English as a second language. Dr. 
Mintz administered three WAIS-IV subtests that assess nonverbal intelligence. Mr. Qureshi scored 
in the borderline range on one, but he outperformed 84% of English-speaking American adults his 
age on another and 50% of healthy age peers on the third. Notably, Dr. Mintz discontinued the last 
of these subtests prematurely, thus preventing Mr. Qureshi from attaining a higher score. 
 
While Dr. Mintz did not administer any symptom questionnaires to Mr. Qureshi, he had Ms. 
Nadeem rate her husband’s everyday executive functioning using the Behavioral Rating Inventory 
of Executive Function (BRIEF-A). She rated his everyday executive functioning as aberrant in 
every respect except emotional control, on which she rated him as normal. Otherwise, her responses 
suggest that her husband shows abnormal impulse control, self-monitoring (social comportment), 
shifting between tasks and circumstances, task initiation, working memory, planning/organization 
(management of current and future demands), task-monitoring, and organization. Overall, she 
described her husband as having severe problems with behavior regulation and metacognition. 
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Based on his assessment, Dr. Mintz concluded that it is “highly unlikely that Mr. Qureshi would 
have the verbal or executive functioning skills to manage the complex documentation required to 
navigate a complex, multi-step process on his own. He further opined that the defendant’s “verbal 
deficits are likely to directly interfere with, and compromise his understanding of, complex legal 
proceedings. It is highly unlikely that he would be able to understand legal documentation in written 
or spoken form.” Finally, Dr. Mintz added, “Mr. Qureshi’s verbal deficits and executive functioning 
deficits may also impair his ability to assist his legal counsel in respect to any legal proceedings.” 
Notably absent from his report is any attempt to reconcile these opinions with Mr. Qureshi’s 
repeated assertions in court that he understood the nature of the charge of wire fraud conspiracy, his 
repeated affirmation that he understood components of the offense to which he pleaded guilty, his 
statement that he reviewed the terms of his plea agreement with his attorney, and his reports of 
being able to understand the proceedings as they unfolded during the hearing. Dr. Mintz did not 
draw any linkage between his general opinions and specific elements of any test for competency. 
Nor did he state what prevented Mr. Qureshi from asking for an Urdu interpreter if he had difficulty 
following court proceedings of which findings precluded him from assisting in his own defense or 
rendered him incapable of making an informed and voluntary decision to plead guilty. Finally, Dr. 
Mintz did not attempt to reconcile the fact that Mr. Qureshi has lived and worked in the United 
States since 2000, is a US citizen, and has supported his family here since 2008 with his opinion 
that the defendant’s English language skills are no better than those of 6- to 8-year-old children.  
 
On 8/29/2023, more than ten months after Mr. Qureshi pled guilty to wire fraud conspiracy pursuant 
to a plea agreement, the defendant filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea with representation by 
his third attorney, Jonathan Ai, Esquire. In that motion, based on Dr. Mintz’s report, his attorney 
argued that Mr. Qureshi has a developmental disability and “deficits” of verbal and executive 
functioning that impair his ability to understand complex legal proceedings, assist in his own 
defense, and understand the nature of both the conspiracy charge against him and his own plea 
agreement. Mr. Ai cited the Dusky v. United States standard of competency, namely that a 
defendant has sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of 
rational understanding and a rational and factual understanding of the proceedings against him. He 
also argued that Mr. Qureshi suffered prejudice because he was never provided an Urdu interpreter 
when he pled guilty and his former attorney failed to advocate for having one appointed. Mr. Ai 
further argued that Mr. Qureshi’s former attorney provided ineffective assistance during the guilty 
plea phase of court proceedings by threatening him, coercing him to plead guilty, and failing to 
explain to him the contents of the plea agreement. Finally, Mr. Ai asserted that Mr. Qureshi is 
innocent of the charge against him because he lacked the mens rea to commit the crime and did not 
knowingly produce any of the documents that were submitted when he applied for the PPP loan. 
 
On 9/19/2023, the Government filed a response opposing Mr. Qureshi’s motion to withdraw his 
guilty plea. In its opposition, ASUA Paul Riley noted that during the guilty plea proceeding on 
10/14/2022, the Court confirmed that Mr. Qureshi was a US citizen and possessed the ability to 
speak and understand English. Mr. Riley further noted that the Court repeatedly read the entire text 
of the one count criminal information aloud to Mr. Qureshi. According to the guilty plea proceeding 
transcript, the Court stopped 20 times (transcript pp. 10–28) to ask Mr. Qureshi if he understood or 
had any confusion about specific details of the criminal information. Just one time when the Court 
asked, “Is there something you didn’t understand about that just then, sir?” Mr. Qureshi replied, 
“Yes.” The Court then reiterated, “You’re accused of committing fraud in connection with the PPP 
program in the fact of COVID-19. Do you understand that?” to which Mr. Qureshi replied, “Yes, 
Your Honor.” The Court asked, “Is there anything I just read to you that you don’t understand?” 
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Mr. Qureshi replied, “No, I understand all you read.” The other 19 times that the Court asked Mr. 
Qureshi if he understood or had any confusion about what was read aloud to him, he consistently 
stated that he understood and had no confusion about it. Mr. Riley noted that the Court conducted a 
thorough colloquy under Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, during which Mr. 
Qureshi repeatedly indicated that his guilty plea was knowing and voluntary with a factual basis. 
Mr. Riley also cited the fact that Mr. Qureshi denied being threatened or forced to plead guilty by 
anyone, including his attorney. In his opposition to Mr. Qureshi’s motion to withdraw his guilty 
plea, Mr. Riley also cited the fact that after he read the factual stipulation associated with Mr. 
Qureshi’s guilty plea, the Court asked if the stipulation was an accurate summary of the case, to 
which Mr. Qureshi replied that it was. Mr. Qureshi stated that he actually committed the crime to 
which he was pleading guilty, and affirmed that he wished to plead guilty. 
 
Mr. Riley further argued that the defendant had produced no evidence that his plea was not knowing 
or voluntary. He noted that Mr. Qureshi did not raise any concern about his attorney or the advice 
he received about pleading guilty, nor did he report any difficulty understanding the proceedings 
against him, the language in which they were conducted, or the stipulation of facts. He did not 
request an interpreter, nor did he pause or equivocate when he was asked whether he was in fact 
guilty of the offense as charged. Mr. Riley argued that Mr. Qureshi offered no credible evidence of 
his actual innocence and that the delay of 10 months between Mr. Qureshi’s guilty plea and his 
motion to withdraw it belied any claim that he made his initial decision to plead guilty hastily, with 
unsure heart or confused mind. Mr. Riley further argued Mr. Qureshi’s own testimony belied his 
claim of ineffective counsel insofar as he reported believing that his attorney was “doing well” for 
him and had done everything Mr. Qureshi had asked him to do. Mr. Riley argued that Mr. Qureshi’s 
claim of having a “developmental disability” lacked merit because neither he nor Dr. Mintz ever 
identified one or any diagnosis at all. Mr. Riley further noted that Mr. Ai misquoted Dr. Mintz and 
that Dr. Mintz never opined that the defendant suffered from a mental disease or defect that 
rendered him mentally incompetent due to an inability to understand the nature or consequences of 
the proceedings against him or to assist in his own defense. Finally, Mr. Riley argued that Dr. 
Mintz’s use of psychological tests that were developed and normed on the U.S. population sample 
and administered in English undermines the reliability and validity of his conclusions. 
 
Formulation & opinions: 
 
Based on my review of the records outlined above and my professional training and experience, I 
reached the following diagnostic formulation and opinions to a reasonable neuropsychological 
probability. 
 
1. Despite Mr. Qureshi’s and his wife’s report that he did poorly in school, neither is an unbiased 
historian, and I found no convincing evidence that the defendant has any learning or attention 
disorder. Absent clear contextual information about the educational prospects, expectations, 
and quality of available schools where Mr. Qureshi was raised in Lahore and among students of 
comparable sociodemographic background, I find it impossible for anyone to conclude that he 
had more or less academic aptitude than was typical of his peers. If it is true that Mr. Qureshi 
began working with his brother-in-law at age 14 or 15, and then started his own business two 
years later, this could even indicate that he was an unusually intelligent apprentice.  
2. We do not know exactly how or when Mr. Qureshi began learning English. If he has had little 
formal training in English before or since he came to the U.S. at age 31, then his performance 
on cognitive testing could be due to poor mastery of English. This does not mean he has a 
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verbal deficit, impairment, or borderline intelligence. It means that his knowledge of English 
has holes that depress his performance, especially on verbal tests. In the same way, even an 
intellectually gifted native English speaker would likely demonstrate borderline or abnormal 
performance on a Chinese IQ test due to acquiring Chinese as a second language. The effects 
of being tested in a nonprimary language are magnified when the languages are very dissimilar, 
as is true of Urdu and English. While Urdu uses Arabic letters and reads from right to left, 
English uses Latin letters and reads from left to right. In neuropsychology, an “impairment” or 
“deficit” refers to the cognitive effect of an acquired or developmental brain abnormality. 
Showing borderline or even abnormal performance on a cognitive test does not necessarily 
mean that the person has brain dysfunction or a cognitive deficit. Mr. Qureshi’s incomplete 
mastery of English likely depressed his test performance, especially on tasks that (1) impose a 
time limit on correct responses, (2) do not allow the examiner to repeat questions, or (3) define 
correct answers precisely when a less precise choice might enable a person to communicate 
quite effectively despite their imperfect word choice. In fact, many of Mr. Qureshi’s spelling 
errors were phonetically correct and easily understood. Thus, the defendant’s acquisition of 
English as a second language and being reared outside the US greatly undermine Dr. Mintz’s 
opinion that he is “impaired.” Just as persons with mild aphasia can often understand and 
convey the gist of a communication despite problems with word recognition or retrieval, so 
persons with imperfect mastery of a foreign language can often communicate more effectively 
than their low scores on language tests might lead one to expect. 
3. The linkage between abnormal test performance and the presence of brain dysfunction also can 
be uncoupled by factors other than being tested in a second language. The most obvious of 
these is motivation. Being tested in the context of a strong external incentive to perform poorly, 
such as when one claims to be too “impaired” to assist counsel, understand the nature or object 
of legal proceedings against one, or enter into a binding plea agreement, can easily lead an 
examinee to sabotage his or her test performance by simply giving wrong answers. When this 
is carried to the extreme, performance validity tests (PVTs) like the Test of Memory 
Malingering or TOMM can sometimes detect such feigning. While most board-certified 
neuropsychologists administer an average of 5 or 6 PVTs, Dr. Mintz gave just one, the TOMM, 
and he administered it incorrectly.2 The TOMM and other PVTs are designed to look more 
difficult than they actually are. As a result, even persons of modest intellectual endowment or 
mild brain dysfunction typically perform normally on them if they want to do so. In this sense, 
PVTs require little cognitive “effort” for success and are insensitive to poor cognitive effort.3,4 
However, another strategy to perform beneath one’s actual ability is to just not try very hard, 
and this might suffice to lower one’s performance while keeping it within broad normal limits. 
Either way, deliberate feigning and simply not trying to do well can uncouple the linkage 
between cognitive performance and the presence/absence of brain-related cognitive 
dysfunction. In the present case, Mr. Qureshi’s poor cognitive performance may be due to both 
being tested in a second language and being strongly motivated not to do well on testing.  
4. Another reason why I respectfully disagree with Dr. Mintz’s opinions is that he administered 
testing incorrectly. He discontinued tests before Mr. Qureshi reached the ceiling, failed to 
record many of Mr. Qureshi’s responses, and recorded many responses so illegibly that it is 
impossible to decipher what Mr. Qureshi actually said or did. For many cognitive tests, items 
are arranged in hierarchical order of difficulty. In order to minimize burden on examinees, the 
examiner works backward to establish a “baseline” of consecutively passed items (skipping 
items the person would almost certainly pass) and a “ceiling” of consecutively failed items 
(skipping items the person would almost certainly fail). Dr. Mintz discontinued several tests 
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before Mr. Qureshi reached the “ceiling,” thereby preventing him from achieving a higher 
score. This invalidates many of the test results he obtained and calls the reliability and validity 
of other results into question. Dr. Mintz discontinued the WAIS-IV Block Design subtest after 
Mr. Qureshi failed a single item, rather than after he failed three consecutive times. Likewise,  
the TOL Picture Vocabulary subtest requires the examiner to continue testing until a person 
fails 6 consecutive items. On this subtest, Mr. Qureshi failed 5 consecutive items (#s 34–38), 
but then passed the next item (#39) by correctly identifying a pendulum. At that point, Dr. 
Mintz should have administered at least six items (and more than that if Mr. Qureshi passed 
any of them), but he did not administer a single item after #39. He also discontinued the TOL 
Segmentation subtest after 5 rather than 6 consecutive failures. In short, Dr. Mintz prematurely 
discontinued the TOMM, Block Design, Picture Vocabulary, and Segmentation tests. We 
cannot know how much higher Mr. Qureshi’s scores would have been had Dr. Mintz 
administered the tests correctly.  
5. In addition to these test administration errors, Dr. Mintz also scored nearly every measure 
derived from the WCST of executive functioning incorrectly. Dr. Mintz said of Mr. Qureshi: 
“His scores were particularly poor in respect to Perseverative Responses (4th percentile), 
indicating a lack of flexibility in thinking when problem-solving and a relative inability to 
incorporate error messages into his problem-solving approach. Dr. Mintz clearly deemed this 
important to his opinion that “it is highly unlikely that Mr. Qureshi would have the verbal or 
executive functioning skills to manage the complex documentation required to navigate a 
complex, multi-step process on his own.” He further opined that Mr. Qureshi’s “executive 
function deficits may also impair his ability to assist his legal counsel.” However, while Dr. 
Mintz stated that Mr. Qureshi gave 57 perseverative responses on this test, when I rescored it 
using the test author’s computerized scoring program, it showed that Mr. Qureshi actually gave 
just 31 perseverative responses, which is low average and corresponds to the 21st percentile. 
The WCST is particularly difficult to score by hand, but Dr. Mintz scored 8 of 8 error metrics 
incorrectly. Notably, Mr. Qureshi also showed two failures to maintain set (FMS), and almost 
showed a third FMS by making an error after four consecutive correct responses, rather than 
five. This may be important because >1 FMS is suggestive of feigned impairment.5 
6. A fourth reason why I disagree with Dr. Mintz’s conclusions is that he based them on a factual 
misunderstanding of the development, standardization, and norming of the very tests he 
administered. On page 4 of his report, Dr. Mintz asserted that while the tests he gave were 
normed in the United States sample, the normative sample included persons from south Asia in 
proportion to their representation in the US population, even though they “may not include 
individual who speak Urdu as their primary language.” In fact, the technical manual for the 
WAIS-IV provides no evidence that even a single person from Pakistan was included in the 
normative sample. It also states clearly than no persons whose primary language was anything 
other than English was included from the normative sample.1 These limitations essentially 
render this test invalid for use with persons of Mr. Qureshi’s background. I am leading a 
project to translate and norm a battery of neuropsychological tests in as many languages and 
countries as possible through a nonprofit organization called Global Neuropsychology, Inc. 
(https://gninc.org/) in an effort to rectify this very problem. Dr. Mintz’s interpretation of Mr. 
Qureshi’s test results represents a lack of cultural competence in clinical neuropsychology. 
Developing such competence has become a major focus of dialog and continuing education 
among the leadership and members of every major neuropsychological organization. Perhaps 
accounting for Dr. Mintz’s apparent unawareness of this is the fact that he does not belong to 
any of these organizations and is not board-certified in neuropsychology or any other specialty. 
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United States v. Ayaz Qureshi  
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7. For all the reasons enumerated above, I believe that Dr. Mintz’s neuropsychological test results 
do not show that Mr. Qureshi has any cognitive deficit or impairment, borderline intelligence, 
or developmental disability. In fact, I think it is more likely than not that Mr. Qureshi is a man 
of at least average intelligence. While the defendant did poorly on several verbal and nonverbal 
tests, I believe that this likely was due to a combination of being tested in the context of a 
strong external incentive to perform poorly and “holes” in his mastery of English. However, 
like most persons with less than full proficiency in a language, I believe that Mr. Qureshi’s 
functional communication skills exceed what one might expect based on his lowest test scores, 
as many of these were timed and/or required specific words and spellings when less precise 
alternatives would communicate adequately. Indeed, many native English speaking Americans 
have limited vocabularies and frequently evince agrammatisms when speaking or writing yet 
nonetheless can grasp even fairly complex oral and written communications based on the 
vocabulary they do recognize and contextual cues. 
8. Finally, I found no evidence in his report that Dr. Mintz adequately assessed Mr. Qureshi’s 
actual competence to stand trial or enter into a plea agreement. That is, it appears that he did 
not interview defense counsel or carefully question Mr. Qureshi regarding his understanding of 
the nature and object of the proceedings against him, his understanding of what the Court and 
Mr. Riley read aloud to him during his guilty plea hearing on 10/14/2022, why he repeatedly 
testified under oath that he understood and had no confusion about what was said during the 
proceeding, or why he repeatedly told the Court that he had conferred with defense counsel, 
understood his advice, affirmed that his attorney had done what he asked of him, and freely and 
knowingly chose to plead guilty because he was guilty of committing wire fraud conspiracy. 
Absent careful elucidation of Mr. Qureshi’s understanding of and reasoning about these 
questions, I believe that Dr. Mintz’s reliance on his cognitive test results and claims that he did 
not understand the wrongfulness or criminality of his behavior at the time of his offense, the 
terms of his plea agreement, or how to assist in his own defense provides nothing more than a 
specious basis for his opinions. Nor did Dr. Mintz assess Mr. Qureshi’s ability to assist in his 
own defense when he decided to file a motion to withdraw his guilty plea and potentially 
increase the severity of his sentence. 
Respectfully submitted, 
 
 
 
David Schretlen, PhD, ABPP/CN 
Clinical Neuropsychologist 
Fellow, American Psychological Association 
Fellow, Association for Psychological Science 
President, Global Neuropsychology, Inc. https://gninc.org/  
 
 
References: 
 
1. Wechsler D, PsychCorp. WAIS-IV Technical and Interpretive Manual. Pearson; 2008. 
2. Martin PK, Schroeder RW, Odland AP. Neuropsychologists’ validity testing beliefs and practices: A 
survey of North American professionals. The Clinical Neuropsychologist. Published online September 21, 
2015:1-36. doi:10.1080/13854046.2015.1087597 
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United States v. Ayaz Qureshi  
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3. Buchholz AS, DeRight J, Gerner GJ, Schretlen DJ. Do “effort tests” really test effort? Neuropsychology. 
2023;37:104-112. doi:10.1037/neu0000865 
4. Chafetz MD. Deception is different: Negative validity test findings do not provide “evidence” for “good 
effort". The Clinical Neuropsychologist. 2022;36(6):1244-1264. doi:10.1080/13854046.2020.1840633 
5. Suhr JA, Boyer D. Use of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test in the detection of malingering in student 
simulator and patient samples. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology. 1999;21(5):701-
708. doi:10.1076/jcen.21.5.701.868 
 
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