America
Indian hotelier in US indicted for bribery, fraud
New York, Sep 10
A prominent Indian-American
hotelier has been indicted on several criminal charges, including
bribing a former government official and committing a disaster relief
fraud, authorities said.
Harendra Singh, 56, was arrested on
Wednesday for running his businesses "through fraud and deceit, using
bribes and kickbacks to tilt the playing field in the town of Oyster
Bay," the US attorney's office said in a statement.
The charges
brought against the Indian-origin businessman include federal programme
bribery, fraud conspiracy, disaster relief fraud, conspiracy to defraud
the US government, obstruction of justice and tampering with evidence,
according to the federal indictment.
"The charges alleged in
today's (Wednesday's) indictment describe an outpouring of greed. As
alleged, Singh put local business owners at a significant disadvantage,
siphoned funds from public money he was not entitled to, and sidestepped
his responsibility to pay taxes on underreported income," FBI Assistant
Director-in-Charge Diego Rodriguez was quoted as saying.
Singh
owned and operated his restaurant and food business in New York state's
Nassau county and was awarded agreements with the town of Oyster Bay.
The
indictment charged Singh of paying bribes and kickbacks to a town
official in exchange for his assistance in obtaining the town's
guarantee of two loans worth about $20 million.
As a result, were
Singh's entities to default on the loans, the town would be responsible
for repaying the lender the entire amount of the loan.
The
indictment also alleged that Singh fraudulently under-reported to the
Internal Revenue Service the true amount of money certain of his
entities earned and the wages he paid his workers, "thereby lowering
significantly the federal taxes he and his businesses owed and paid".
If convicted, Singh faces imprisonment and his properties can be forfeited.