Mohammed Shahbaz Khan, Mortgage Assistance Fraud, Illinois 2024

Mohammed Shahbaz Khan, a 46-year-old man from Bourbonnais, Illinois, has been sentenced to 12 months’ probation and ordered to pay a total of $82,000 in restitution after pleading guilty to making false claims related to mortgage assistance from the Hardest Hit Fund.

According to court documents, Khan knowingly submitted false residency statements to obtain mortgage assistance on an Indiana property while living elsewhere. He received mortgage assistance for 17 months, to which he was not entitled.

The Hardest Hit Fund was established to help stabilize communities in states that were ‘hardest hit’ by the 2008 economic and housing market downturn. In Indiana, the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority administers the fund.

As part of his sentence, Khan was ordered to pay $29,926.46 in restitution to the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority, $25,753 to the Indiana Department of Employment Security, and $26,880.18 to the United States Department of Agriculture.

The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Molly Kelley and Toi Houston.

Special Inspector General Christy Goldsmith Romero praised the U.S. Attorney’s office for standing united with SIGTARP to protect the Hardest Hit Fund from crime. ‘Today the defendant was sentenced after conviction as one of 462 defendants prosecuted for crimes that the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief (SIGTARP) investigated,’ she said.

The U.S. Attorney’s office, led by Acting United States Attorney Tina L. Nommay, worked tirelessly to bring Khan to justice for his crimes.

As the Special Inspector General noted, Khan repeatedly lied to government agencies to defraud the Hardest Hit Fund out of federal funding intended to help unemployed homeowners stay in their homes.

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