San Diego man sentenced in a multi-million dollar fraud scheme: San Diego Union-Tribuno

A man from San Diego who directed a fraud scheme that took millions of investors, many of whom were his family and friends, while receiving millions of pandemic loan funds abused were sentenced on Friday to almost two decades in prison.

Denny Bhakta was sentenced by a federal jury of San Diego for more than two dozen values ​​fraud, bank fraud and money laundering charges for schemes that brought family members, close friends and government institutions of millions over the course of several years. Bhakta was sentenced to 235 months in prison.

Initially he was accused of requesting investments for his companies, Fusion Hotel Management LLC and Fusion Hospitality Corp., then using investors on personal expenses and to pay other investors, according to the Office of the United States Prosecutor. Those personal uses of investor funds included buying expensive vehicles and making exorbitant gambling spares, and prosecutors described an instance of Bhakta losing $ 1 million in a Las Vegas casino in less than eight hours.

The prosecutors said that investors were told that Bhakta’s companies would buy blocks discount from Hilton hotel rooms, then they would sell those rooms to make United Airlines and other companies.

Bhakta provided manufactured bank records and false agreements with Hilton and United Airlines so that the alleged merging business businesses seem legitimate, according to prosecutors, who said that Bhakta took around $ 35 million from investors, including his uncle, who lost $ 4.5 million.

Two years after the investment fraud charges were presented, federal prosecutors accused Bhakta in relation to 18 loans from the salary protection program that he requested, for a total of $ 4.4 million.

Prosecutors claim that Bhakta misrepresented the payroll expenses of their businesses, the number of employees and how money would be used. He also used some of the names of the victims of investment fraud to affirm that they were fusion employees to ensure loans, prosecutors said.