Mideast Banker Ordered To Spend Next 4 Vacations In Chicago
CHICAGO (STMW) -- Mayor Rahm Emanuel has made it a priority to make Chicago a world class tourist destination. But a federal judge went one better on Monday, ordering a wealthy Middle Eastern banker to fly into the Second City for his next four vacations.
Under a highly unusual sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin, tax cheat Aamir Khan will be allowed to serve five years of probation in his hometown of Doha, Qatar.
But for the next four years, Khan also will have to jet into Chicago once a year to spend 30 days in a halfway house.
The sentence — suggested by Khan's lawyer, James Montana Jr. — will allow Khan to keep his well-paid banking job in Qatar and help him to pay the IRS the more than $1.7 million he owes in restitution and fines.
Montana on Monday described it as a "very fair and reasonable" resolution to the case.
Khan, 48, was born in Pakistan but studied at the University of Chicago and lived in Naperville from 1998 until 2004, when he relocated to the Middle East to work in banking in Bahrain and Dubai.
The father-of-four pleaded guilty in August to massively understating his income in three tax returns between 2006 and 2008, and to failing to file a tax return in 2009. Altogether he dodged more than $1.3 million in taxes, prosecutors said.
Khan has already paid $400,000 of the money he owes but would have lost his job, as would his wife, if he had been sentenced to prison, as prosecutors requested, Montana argued in court filings.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2014. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)