Thread: Convenience Store Owner Sentenced in SBA Loan Plot

Convenience store owner sentenced in loan plot

Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, December 25, 2008
(12-24) 15:14 PST

San Francisco - -- A Pleasanton entrepreneur has been sentenced to 13 months in prison and fined $1.2 million for abusing federal small business loans while building an empire of Northern California convenience stores, ending what the government called one of the biggest investigations of its kind.

Federal prosecutors said Ashraf "Mike" Ali, 55, led a complex scheme in which he helped partners launch stores and snag $4.4 million in startup loans guaranteed by the Small Business Administration.

Ali invested in the stores as a partial owner, but he hid his involvement so his partners would qualify for the loan program.

"He tried to help some of his business partners own their own stores, and he went about it the wrong way," said Ali's attorney, Ed Swanson.

Ali, a father of three, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and was sentenced last week at the U.S. District Court in San Francisco. He must begin his prison sentence by June and is expected to serve time at a camp-style facility.

His wife, 52-year-old Yasmin Ali, admitted to harboring up to 24 illegal immigrants who worked in the couple's stores and was sentenced to six months of house arrest and fined $100,000.

A dozen others, many of them store owners, have been convicted in connection with the conspiracy. All of the defendants have agreed to repay the federal loans, and more than $4 million has already been repaid, prosecutors said.

In November 2003, after state and federal agents raided his convenience stores, Ali told The Chronicle that he had only tried to help other entrepreneurs and was a victim of discrimination based on his Pakistani roots.

Ali started his career in 1978 as a clerk at a Circle K convenience store in Healdsburg. By 2003, he said he owned 26 Fast and Easy stores, a pair of Arby's restaurants and a Taco Bell.

Swanson said Ali had to sell many of his businesses to repay the loans.

E-mail Demian Bulwa at dbulwa@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 14UUS3.DTL

Send him and the others back to Pakistan!

In November 2003, after state and federal agents raided his convenience stores, Ali told The Chronicle that he had only tried to help other entrepreneurs and was a victim of discrimination based on his Pakistani roots