A Hinsdale resident has been sentenced to more than 16 years in prison for misappropriating more than $77 million from individuals and financial institutions.
Sultan Issa, 47, who pled guilty in January to wire fraud affecting a financial institution, was ordered to serve 200 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood on Monday in Chicago.
The sentence was announced by John Lausch, Jr., United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.
Issa was a certified public accountant and chief financial officer of a group of partnerships, corporations and trusts owned by a Chicago-area family, according to the U.S. attorney’s press release. From 2010 to 2017, he embezzled at least $45 million of the family’s assets, including money from a trust account that was set up to pay medical expenses for a family member suffering from an incapacitating illness. Issa attempted to conceal the scheme by providing financial institutions with fraudulent loan documents and forging authorizations to gain control of the funds.
Issa also fraudulently obtained at least another $5.1 million from individuals by claiming he would invest their money in legitimate opportunities, including the now defunct Global Luxury Imports auto dealership he owned in Burr Ridge.
He used more than $15 million in the fraudulently obtained funds on the dealership, including purchasing the showroom and the cars, and covering employee salaries, while creating false account statements and making Ponzi-type payments to individual investors.
“Issa used fraud proceeds to cover personal expenses and to secure fraudulent loans from financial institutions totaling at least $83 million to acquire, among other things, 25 residential properties in Illinois, Montana, Michigan and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, two private aircraft, four yachts, approximately 60 firearms and assorted watches, jewelry and memorabilia,” the release stated.
As part of the sentence, Judge Wood ordered Issa to pay more than $72 million in restitution to his victims.
