FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	CONTACT: Lauren Horwood
April 22, 2011	PHONE: (916) 554-2706
www.usdoj.gov/usao/cae	usacae.edcapress@usdoj.gov
Docket #: 06-cr-365-LJO

FRESNO, Calif. — United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced that a federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment yesterday, charging Abdel Baset Jawad, 36, Abdul Muniem Mohamed Jawad, 37, Najeh Kamal Jawad, 49, and Husam Sarama, 27, all of Stanislaus County, and Hussein Ali, 52, of Fresno County, with conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

The indictment alleges that during the time of the conspiracy, the Jawads, all brothers, owned and operated various used automobile dealerships in Stanislaus and Merced Counties. Employees of the dealerships, including Ali and Sarama, would assist customers in finding a vehicle to purchase. Many of these customers, however, were in a poor financial situation and unable to qualify for a vehicle loan. In order to enable the customers to obtain financing, the Jawads, and others acting at their direction and on their behalf, including Ali and Sarama, conspired to assist the customers in preparing misleading and false financial documents for submission to a financial institution in order to obtain automobile purchase financing.

According to the superseding indictment, in some instances the defendants conspired to enter fictitious information on loan applications including the names of employers for which the customers did not work, or, if the customers were employed, inflated earnings amounts. As part of the alleged conspiracy, Ali's business was used as a fictitious employer or provided fictitious earning statements for customers of the car dealerships. Some of the customers signed these loan applications, while others had no knowledge of how their signatures appeared on the applications.

Because of the defendants' conduct, financial institutions approved loans to customers who otherwise should not have received financing. As customers were approved for loans, the dealerships would in turn receive the money as payment for the purchased vehicles. In some instances, customers defaulted on the loan provided by the financial institution and the financial institution sustained a monetary loss.

The initial indictment charged the three brothers and co-defendant Armando Fathic Abdullah, 41, of Madera. Abdullah pleaded guilty to count one on December 10, 2009 and is set for sentencing on June 6, 2011. The five defendants listed in the superseding indictment are scheduled to appear in court on May 20, 2011.

This case is the product of an extensive investigation by the California Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant United States Attorneys Jeremy R. Jehangiri, Henry Z. Carbajal III, and Mark E. Cullers are prosecuting the case.

The maximum statutory penalty for conspiracy to commit bank fraud is 30 years in prison, a $1 million fine, or both, a period of supervised release, forfeiture, and restitution. The actual sentence, however, will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables.

The charges are only allegations and the defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

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