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A former Cook County Land Bank Authority worker has been hit with a year in the slammer for scheming to buy and flip properties using dummy buyers, officials said Friday. The 37-year-old Chicago man, Mustafaa Saleh, was cuffed for cutting corners and fattening his wallet through illicit real estate deals, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office of the Northern District of Illinois.
In a Chicago federal courtroom, U.S. District Judge Andrea R. Wood saddled Saleh with a year-and-a-day behind bars after he admitted to a wire fraud charge. In a tangle of collusion that stretched from 2016 to 2021, Saleh manipulated the system in place at the CCLBA—an agency selling real estate at cut-rate prices—to boost the redevelopment of neglected, vacant, or tax-delinquent properties. These properties were meant to be improved by the buyers, who were barred from reselling or renting until greenlit by the agency. Yet Saleh, whose role as an asset manager should have served the public trust, used straw buyers to snap up six properties on the low and turn them over for his gain, according to the sentencing announcement.
But Saleh’s ruse wasn’t just in property flipping—he doubled down on his deceit with a sham maintenance outfit. The rogue employee founded Evergreen Property Services in 2016 and wheeled in over a million bucks from CCLBA contracts by using another individual to masquerade as the owner. This operation flew straight in the face of agency rules that prohibited employees from keeping a financial stake in any entities cutting deals with the CCLBA.
The case against Saleh was a collective effort, with special kudos owed to the HUD’s Inspector General, the FBI, and several other watchdog offices for sniffing out the corruption. Acting U.S. Attorney Morris Pasqual, along with Special Agents Machelle L. Jindra and Robert W. “Wes” Wheeler, Jr., led the charge, their efforts bolstered by the Office of Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program and others. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sean Franzblau and Kirsten Moran, along with Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Netols, were credited for spearheading the government’s case.
The properties that Saleh shuffled like a deck of cards were strewn across Chicago and its suburbs, including Oak Lawn and Midlothian. Saleh’s disregard for the guidelines intended to steer the CCLBA’s noble quest—to recycle derelict land into thriving parcels—has left him boxed in for the next year, an example of the fate that befalls those who betray their badges for personal profit.
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This article was originally published by a hoodline.com . Read the Original article here. .