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    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Final sentence is handed down in IHOP arson case

    Final sentence is handed down in IHOP arson case

    Business partner gets 57 months, ordered to pay restitution

    BY JENNIFER FEEHAN
    BLADE STAFF WRITER
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    The business partner of former IHOP franchisee Tarek Elkafrawi was sentenced Friday to 57 months in prison.

    Mazen Khdeer, 55, of Sylvania also was ordered to share the burden — with Elkafrawi and Jose Leon-Gonzalez — of paying nearly $1.4 million in restitution to Farmers Insurance and the Findlay Fire Department for the 2008 blaze that destroyed the Findlay IHOP.


    Khdeer, who pleaded guilty early last year to 13 counts, including malicious use of fire for paying Leon-Gonzalez to set the fire, apologized in U.S. District Court before Judge David Katz imposed the sentence.


    “I’m ashamed I paid the guy to do that,” Khdeer said, adding that he worked for Elkafrawi and did what he was instructed to do.


    “I lived all my life I never got into any trouble not even a driving ticket or anything like that,” he said. “… I feel ashamed of all [that] happened.’ ”


    Duncan Brown, an assistant U.S. attorney, told the court that unlike some of the lower-level employees of the seven IHOPs who were prosecuted in the case, Khdeer could not claim he was only doing what he was told.


    “Mr. Khdeer is and was more than a district manager. He was [Tarek’s] partner from the very beginning,” Mr. Brown said. “He and Mr. Elkafrawi ran these organizations. Mr. Khdeer had daily interactions with all the employees.”


    In addition to the arson charge, Khdeer pleaded guilty to money laundering, conspiracy to harbor illegal immigrants, identity theft, conspiracy to commit health-care fraud, and eight counts of filing false claims.


    Mr. Brown said Khdeer got caught up in the schemes to defraud the government, corporate IHOP, an insurance company, and employees “because he was greedy, because he was willing to put his needs above the needs of his employees, many of whom he exploited because they were illegal aliens.”

    “He was willing to put his needs in front of the safety of the Findlay Fire Department … and he was willing to put the safety and well-being of his family in a second place over his desire for money,” Mr. Brown said.


    Although Khdeer was the first to enter guilty pleas in the case — he pleaded guilty in January, 2013 — he was the last to be sentenced.


    Elkafrawi, 57, of Perrysburg was sentenced last month to eight years in prison, while Leon-Gonzalez was sentenced in April to 41 months. Tarek Eid Omar, the former manager of the Evansville, Ind., IHOP, was sentenced last month to 51 months in prison.


    Most of the remaining co-defendants, including Elkafrawi’s wife, Kelly Elkafrawi, were placed on probation.


    Judge Katz also ordered the forfeiture of property belonging to Khdeer, including real estate and cash.


    Read more at http://www.toledoblade.com/Courts/20...hyMj1Rr3MAc.99
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    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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