A flashy Northern Virginia businessman is expected to plead guilty Thursday to bank fraud charges accusing him of lying about his collateral for about $53 million in loans.
Earlier this week, steakhouse owner Osama El-Atari’s banker was charged with bank fraud after El-Atari handed evidence over to prosecutors, court documents said.
El-Atari fled the region in July to avoid prosecution, but the owner of several franchises of Lucky’s Sports Theatre and Grill, and Original Steakhouse and Sports Theatre was arrested in February on bank fraud charges by authorities in Texas. Before then his only run-ins with the law had been the speeding tickets he racked up driving his Lamborghini.
No attorney was listed in court records for El-Atari, but records show he’s expected to plead guilty Thursday.
Since his return to Virginia, El-Atari has been meeting with law enforcement officials, sketching out the details of his relationship with his banker, court documents said.
Sissaye Gezachew, an assistant vice president at United Bank, was arrested Tuesday on bank fraud charges. Gezachew’s attorney declined to comment and United Bank did not return calls for comment.
El-Atari reportedly told authorities that he paid Gezachew $150,000 in return for Gezachew’s help with making El-Atari’s lies about his collateral “tight” enough to pass scrutiny, court documents said.
The two first met in December 2007 to discuss a $5 million loan so El-Atari could open restaurants in Maryland. Gezachew reportedly told El-Atari that the documents he was using to get the cash were of poor quality and he offered to help, court documents said.
From that point through May 2009, El-Atari paid Gezachew in increments of $5,000 to $9,999 for Gezachew’s help in falsifying other documents, authorities said. At times, El-Atari would e-mail documents to Gezachew, who would then doctor them and e-mail them back. Authorities said they found evidence of these exchanges in El-Atari’s e-mail account.
The relationship helped El-Atari obtain nearly $18 million in loans from United Bank. The loans were based on El-Atari’s false claim that he had more than $20 million in life insurance policies, court documents said.
