Former Cook County Land Bank employee gets a year in prison for fraud
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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 forfeiting 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.
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 his behalf, then redeveloped, resold or otherwise used the properties for his 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 attorney, Damon Cheronis, asked for probation, noting that the fraud scheme was unusual in that Saleh had done good work in rehabbing all the properties involved.
“Mr. Saleh knew first-hand the value of strong neighborhoods and the detrimental effect vacant and abandoned buildings could have on his community,” Cheronis wrote in a recent court filing. “Mr. Saleh loved his job and hoped that his work led to better results for his community.”
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.”
