A former Las Vegas man has been sentenced in New York to seven years in federal prison after he solicited investments in a purported cannabis and restaurants businesses that drained investors of $1.4 million, federal prosecutors announced Friday.
Elias Ghanem II, 38, pleaded guilty to a wire fraud charge in February, according to a Department of Justice press release. Along with the prison sentence, Ghanem was ordered to pay approximately $1.4 million in restitution to the victims of his crimes, the release said.
The sentence was handed down by Judge Gary Brown, a federal judge in New York. It was announced Friday by Joseph Nocella, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York and Christopher Raia, the FBI’s assistant director in charge for its New York field office.
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