Complaint Review: Trans Continental Talent

MAN GETS FOUR YEARS IN FRAUD CASE
From news services and staff reports
Column: CRIME AND JUSTICE

March 12, 1996; Page B8

An Arlington man was sentenced yesterday to nearly four years in prison for
defrauding more than 13,000 customers of more than $2 million in a national telemarketing scam.

U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan ordered Ayman A. El-Difrawi, 32, to pay more than $2.3 million in estitution to victims of the scam he created through companies known as the Small Business Loan Association and
Shearson Management Group.

El-Difrawi also was ordered to repay the costs of his court-appointed lawyers after the probation office and the FBI discovered that he and another of his companies, Cosmoco Inc., received more than $170,000 for
consulting work during the time he claimed he could not afford an attorney.

According to prosecutors Roger W. Burke Jr. and Peggy Ellen, El-Difrawi and the Small Business Loan company offered to help small businesses
acquire
loans.

He and others collected fees but never followed through with the promised help. Through the Shearson company, they offered to help people find jobs, again for a fee, but never delivered.

The scheme was launched in 1990 and stretched from Orlando to Los Angeles to Washington.

3/11/96 --
SENTENCING by Judge Thomas F. Hogan for AYMAN A. EL-DIFRAWI

(1) count(s) 1. Defendant Sentenced to Forty-Six (46)
Months Incarceration; Three (3) Years Supervised Release;
One Hundred Dollars ($100.00) Special Assessment;
Restitution in the Amount of Two Million, Three Hundred
Thirty-Nine Thousand, One Hundred Twenty-Seven Dollars
($2,339,127.00).

Ex Employee
orlando, Florida
U.S.A.