Federal prosecutors have dropped a case against a Temecula businessman who had been convicted of Covid-19 loan fraud and sentenced to five years in prison after the government acknowledged that it prosecuted Oumar Sissoko for misspending money under “a legally erroneous theory.”
In June, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated the 2022 conviction after the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed a motion to dismiss the case. Sissoko had been free during his appeal after posting bail.
Following an indictment by a federal grand jury, Sissoko was convicted of four counts of wire fraud in April 2022 at the end of a three-day trial — the second trial in the case after the first one resulted in a hung jury.
Prosecutors could not prove that he obtained the money through a lie, just that he received the money and used it for what the government said were unauthorized purposes.
“All parties agreed that Sissoko did not lie about his company’s status — or about anything else — to get the loan,” his attorney, Deputy Federal Public Defender Margaret A. Farrand, wrote in her petition to U.S. District Judge John F. Walter.
“The government concedes that it proceeded on a legally erroneous theory at trial,” federal prosecutors said in a court filing.
Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles, declined to comment on why prosecutors pursued the case through two trials using the same legal theory only to abandon the prosecution during the appeal process.
The Department of Justice issued news releases on Sissoko being charged, convicted and sentenced but did not announce that he had been cleared.
“The prosecutors, they prosecuted at any cost,” Sissoko, 61, said in an interview on Thursday, Oct. 10. “They destroyed my life, they destroyed my business.”
Sissoko in 2020 applied for a $7.25 million federal Paycheck Protection Program loan to create a business, Road Doctor. Sissoko said he believed he would make millions of dollars with proprietary technology that would allow a fleet of specialized trucks using infrared technology to repair potholes in only 30 minutes — quicker that other repair services.
Sissoko said he planned to hire 450 employees to start. A native of Senegal, Sissoko planned to build his business in the United States and in Africa.
The federal program allows small businesses and other organizations that already existed and had employees to receive loans with a 1% interest rate that must be spent on payroll, mortgages, rent and utilities. The loans are forgiven if the business spends a certain percentage on payroll.
If the money is spent on impermissible uses, the contract calls for repayment of the loan.
Sissoko said he knew he was ineligible for the loans, but that he asked for an exception. He said he was truthful on his application, and the government, in court filings, acknowledged that.
The program quickly approved the loan.
Sissoko spent $370,000 on, among other things, a Mercedes-Benz he planned to drive around five states to secure contracts with municipalities, a computer for work, and salaries for himself and his wife. Sissoko was then charged with wire fraud and, he said, arrested at gunpoint in front of his family.
“What was the crime?” he wondered. “Buying a computer? Buying a corporate car?”
Sissoko spent five days in jail before he posted bail. During that time, he said, an inmate tried to stab him in the neck.
Sissoko never got his company off the ground.
Sissoko said the government seized the $7.25 million except the $370,000, which he doesn’t need to repay because it was spent on permissible uses.
Still, although his wife works and his name has been cleared, Sissoko said he worries about his future.
“I lost all my friends,” he said, referring to the bad publicity. “I lost all my credibility.”
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