A former manager at the Cook County Land Bank Authority was sentenced to a year in prison Friday for using straw buyers to fraudulently purchase and resell blighted properties and secretly setting up a property management company that raked in more than a million dollars in ill-gotten maintenance fees.
Mustafaa Saleh, 37, of Woodridge, pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of wire fraud. He had faced up to about 3 ½ years in prison under preliminary sentencing guidelines.
U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood imposed the sentence, which included forfeit about $173,000 in profits that the scheme pulled in.
The Tribune first reported in June 2021 that Saleh had been named in a subpoena sent by prosecutors to the Land Bank Authority asking for records as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into the program, which was formed to promote economic development in blighted communities that’s also been the subject of controversy.
Land Bank Authority employees are prohibited from purchasing a property from the agency unless it would be used for the employee’s primary residence.
Over a five-year period beginning in 2016, Saleh used straw buyers to purchase six properties from the agency on Saleh’s behalf, then redeveloped, resold or otherwise used the properties for Saleh’s financial benefit, his plea agreement stated. The properties were in Chicago and the suburbs of Oak Lawn and Midlothian.
Saleh also admitted in the plea that he formed a property maintenance company, Evergreen Property Services, and directed another individual to pose as its owner. Over the next three years, he caused the Land Bank Authority to contract with Evergreen and pay more than $1 million for property maintenance services.
County records show Saleh left the agency in 2019.
Saleh’s attorneys noted the fraud scheme was unusual in that Saleh had done good work in rehabbing all the properties involved.
After Saleh was charged last year, the Land Bank spokeswoman issued a statement saying it “cooperated fully with the investigation” and that “the agency, board members, executive directors and other staff were victims of this crime and never the subject or target of this investigation.”