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Suburban man accused of defrauding the state

Posted July 12, 2007 11:00 pm

Chris Dettro

A Chicago-area man allegedly defrauded the state of Illinois of more than $170,000 by failing to provide supportive services for disadvantaged businesses as called for in contracts awarded to him by two state departments.

Omar Shareef, 48, of Palos Park was indicted by a federal grand jury in Springfield Thursday on charges he defrauded the Illinois Department of Transportation and state Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity from March 2004 to June 2006.

Shareef is owner and president of the African American Contractors Association (AACA) and the AACA Business Consulting Services Corp. Both companies essentially operated as the same firm at an office in Chicago, the indictment says.

AACA also represented itself as having other offices in other states.

Both companies operated as business consultants. They said they helped minority firms with business development by offering management and technical assistance and other services, according to the indictment.

IDOT gave AACA two contracts - a $90,000 contract to provide management assistance and a $60,000 one to provide technical assistance to disadvantaged businesses - on March 15, 2004.

The indictment says Shareef submitted invoices that falsely represented that consulting services had been provided to the firms when few services actually were performed.

Part of the scheme allegedly involved invoices that AACA had created business plans for Disadvantaged Business Enterprise firms when, in some instances, DBE firms had little contact with AACA and hadn't authorized creation of a business plan.

The government alleges that AACA submitted invoices to IDOT for more than $122,000 for 1,900 hours of work.

In June 2004, the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity awarded three grants totaling $300,700 to AACA Consulting to provide training to small and minority-owned businesses.

About the same time, the indictment says, Shareef bought his personal residence in Palos Park. He spent about $88,770 in grant funds to buy the home and about $3,600 on a trip to Disney World in Florida, authorities say.

When DCEO started a performance audit, Shareef allegedly submitted documents falsely representing that AACA Consulting had used the grant funds for their stated purposes.

The charges are the result of an investigation by the FBI and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Assistant U.S. attorney Timothy Bass is prosecuting the case.

Each offense of carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

Chris Dettro can be reached at (217) 788-1510 or chris.dettro@sj-r.com.

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