The former Ross Family Service Coordinator for the Atlantic City Housing Authority and Urban Redevelopment Agency today admitted to fraudulently applying for and obtaining COVID-19 relief funds.
Luquay Zahir, 50, of Atlantic City, New Jersey, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Karen M. Williams to two counts of an information charging him with making false statements to influence the U.S. Small Business Administration (“SBA”) and wire fraud.
Prosecutors contend that Zahir, in 2020 and 2021, fraudulently obtained more than $30,000 through a Paycheck Protection Program loan and Economic Injury Disaster Loan advance issued under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.
Zahir applied for loans intended to assist business owners with the financial burden of the COVID-19 pandemic, falsely claiming ownership of non-existent businesses.
Zahir first applied for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan, or EIDL, July 9, 2020, saying he owned an “advertising sales” business that employed 10 people and made $100,000 gross revenue from Feb. 1, 2019 through Jan. 31, 2020.
Zahir then filed another loan under the Paycheck Protection Program on March 20, 2021.
This time, he asked for $20,400, falsely claiming that he ran a barbershop that made $97,919 in profits in 2019, the complaint states. He again gave his home address as that of the business.
At the time of this crimes, Zahir was working as coordinator for the Resident Opportunity and Self-Sufficiency, or ROSS, grant program for the Atlantic City Housing Authority and Urban Development Agency.
The count of making false statements to influence the SBA carries a maximum potential penalty of two years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000. The count of wire fraud carries a maximum potential penalty of 20 years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000.
Zahir, known as Q, has a history of voter fraud and weapons convictions.
It’s not clear how Zahir was hired by Atlantic City after his first round of criminal charges.
A judge suspended his sentence of five years in prison, contingent on his staying out of trouble after he pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a 12-gauge shotgun in 2005 after he and another man shot at each other.
A judge put him in prison in 2009 after his indictment on voter fraud charges related to Marty Small, Sr.’s unsuccessful mayoral campaign that year. He had been a ballot messenger working with the Callaway family political operation and instead of delivering ballots back to voters, prosecutors said he filled them out himself.
Zahir has an active criminal case pending in the Atlantic County Superior Court stemming from a February 2021 arrest after he was accused of beating a man with a handgun.
Police were called to South Carolina and Baltic avenues on Jan. 4, 2021, when a man said he had been assaulted whilen his back was turned.
Michael Smith said he and his attacker spent time in the county jail together, but that he did not know his assailant’s “government name,” according to the affidavit.
Video surveillance allegedly captured the attack by the man a witness said was named “Quay.”
During a detention hearing Feb. 23, 2021, the state wanted Zahir to be held pending trial but his lawyer claimed Smith had the gun and that the defendant took it in self-defense.
Zahir was a Marty Small campaign worker when he was arrested Tuesday, June 9, 2009, on tampering and fraud charges related to his handling of messenger ballots related to the Atlantic City’s 2009 mayoral primary.
Zahir, Small and 12 others were indicted in September 2009 on charges that they mishandled absentee ballots during the 2009 Democratic primary in Atlantic City.
Messenger ballots have long played an outsized role in Atlantic City elections, often determining the result long after polls had closed. Candidates would routinely go to bed on Election Night thinking they had won, only to be surprised the next day to find out they had lost once all the absentees had been counted.
The political machine of former Council President Craig Callaway perfected the use of absentee ballots, routinely collecting hundreds upon hundreds of them. The tactic continued even after Callaway was sent to federal prison for a bribery conviction, as well as his role in a sex video blackmail case against a council rival who had crossed him.
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