John Farahi, Iranian-Jewish radio personality receives 10 years for Ponzi scheme
Jewish Journal: John Farahi, a popular Iranian-Jewish investment adviser and talk-show host on the L.A.-based Farsi-language Radio Iran KIRN-AM (670), was sentenced in U.S. District Court on March 18 in downtown Los Angeles to 10 years in federal prison for operating a multi-million-dollar Ponzi scheme against local Iranian-Americans. Farahi, 56, also was ordered by the court to pay more than $24 million in restitution to close to 60 victims.
Last June, Farahi pleaded guilty to felony charges of mail fraud, loan fraud, selling unregistered securities and conspiring with David Tamman, his attorney at the time, to obstruct the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation into his case. According to an SEC press release, the statutory maximum penalty for the four charges to which Farahi pleaded guilty is 75 years in federal prison; however, under the terms of Farahi’s plea agreement, the government agreed to recommend a sentence of no more than 10 years in prison.
Iranian-Jewish community leaders and creditors have kept quiet about Farahi and other Iranian-Jewish investors charged in recent years with running Ponzi schemes, in keeping with a long-standing community taboo against publicly discussing potentially embarrassing incidents. But this isn’t the only time the community has been targeted by a Ponzi scheme. Ezri Namvar, 62, a longtime leading Iranian-Jewish businessman and philanthropist in Los Angeles, was sentenced in October 2011 to seven years in federal prison for stealing $21 million from four clients. Namvar also was ordered by the court to pay back $21 million in restitution to his victims, yet he is believed to have allegedly bilked investors — who put money into his $2.5 billion real estate portfolio before the 2008 market crash — out of hundreds of millions of dollars.
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