James T. Jacks
Acting United States Attorney
Northern District of Texas

SAN ANGELO, TEXAS, MEAT PROCESSING PLANT OWNER SENTENCED
TO MORE THAN THREE YEARS IN FEDERAL PRISON, WITHOUT PAROLE, FINED $10,000, AND ORDERED TO PAY MORE THAN $2 MILLION RESTITUTION

LUBBOCK, Texas — The owner of American Halal Meat Processors, Inc., in San Angelo, Texas, Mohammed Fayyaz Hayat, 47, was sentenced today, by U.S. District Judge Sam R. Cummings, to 37 months in prison, announced acting U.S. Attorney James T. Jacks of the Northern District of Texas. Hayat pled guilty in November to four counts of wire fraud and aiding and abetting and two counts of false statements to a bank and aiding and abetting. In addition, Judge Cummings ordered that Hayat pay a $10,000 fine and more than $2 million in restitution. After Hayat was arrested in March 2008, he was released on bond. However, in October 2008, Judge Cummings found that Hayat had violated conditions of his pretrial release and remanded him into custody.

In June 1999, Hayat and his wife, Roohi Fayyaz, incorporated American Halal Meat Processors, Inc., in Texas, to operate a halal slaughtering business. Halal butchering is the Islamic ritual in which an animal’s throat is cut to allow removal of all blood. Hayat purchased a closed meat processing plant located on N. Bell Street in San Angelo, paying $50,000 at closing and signing two promissory notes, totaling $625,000 to the seller. Halal and his wife also owned an auto repair garage business in St. Paul, Minnesota, and in the late 1990's, lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Beginning in April 2002 and continuing until February 2007, Hayat ran a scheme to defraud by fraudulently convincing three potential lenders in Minnesota to provide financing and lines of credit to him to supposedly expand his automotive repair business in Minnesota and make improvements to the Minnesota property. He then, however, used these proceeds to fund renovations on his property in Texas. He also used materially false and fraudulent representations and documents to convince two additional lenders that he had sufficient collateral and income to repay the financing he was seeking when, as he well knew, he didn’t have sufficient collateral or income to repay the financing. He was charged with wire fraud for the wiring of the money from the banks in Minnesota and then for making false statements to the banks for the loans he received in Texas.

Acting U.S. Attorney Jacks praised the investigative efforts of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ann Cruce-Roberts of the Lubbock, Texas, U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecuted the case.

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