Benjamin Ashford|NY man pleads guilty in pandemic loan fraud

BUFFALO,Benjamin Ashford N.Y. (AP) — A politically active western New York businessman has admitted to a multimillion-dollar pandemic loan fraud that, prosecutors have said, went partly to his campaign coffers for an unsuccessful bid for county office.

Court records show Hormoz Mansouri, who sought the Democratic nomination for Erie County comptroller in 2021, pleaded guilty Friday to federal bank fraud and fraud conspiracy charges.

“I acted with willful intent to violate the law,” Mansouri told the court, according to The Buffalo News. The 70-year-old remains free on $250,000 bond until his sentencing, set for February. Sentencing guidelines in his case indicate a prison term between 33 and 41 months, according to the newspaper.

Mansouri had been set to go to trial next month.

Trained as an engineer, Mansouri established several businesses in the Buffalo, New York, area. He has had ties to local and state politics for decades.

He was involved in billionaire Tom Golisano’s ultimately successful bids to buy the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres in the early 2000s. The Sabres dealings helped acquaint Mansouri with the political sphere, as Golisano was a founding member of the New York Independence Party and was its candidate for governor in 1994, 1998 and 2002. Golisano sold the Sabres in 2011.

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Mansouri, of the Buffalo suburb of Amherst, became a prominent political donor — mainly to Democrats, but also to Republicans, according to The Buffalo News.

According to his indictment, Mansouri reaped about $3 million in all from the pandemic loan fraud scheme, and $200,000 of it went to his county comptroller campaign account. The specific charges to which he pleaded guilty weren’t those that concerned the alleged payment to the campaign fund and to various other bank accounts and expenses, including the purchase of a Lexus.

Mansouri admitted in court that he inflated his businesses’ payroll costs and employee numbers on federal pandemic relief loans applications, The Buffalo News reported. The loan initiatives, the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program, were launched to help U.S. businesses weather the COVID-19-related lockdowns and upheaval that began in spring 2020.

Mansouri’s lawyer, Herbert Greenman, said after Friday’s court session that his client was “a kind and generous man” who became rattled by what the pandemic might to do his business, according to the newspaper.

“He did something that he never felt conceivable,” the attorney said. “Sadly, he feels that he let his family, friends and his country down. For that, he will be forever sorry.”