Apr.29, 2010

A jet-setting former resident of Ashburn who lived a lavish lifestyle while also defrauding creditors out of tens of millions of dollars pleaded guilty April 29 to bank fraud and money laundering.

Osama El-Atari, the former owner of The Original Steakhouse and Sports Theater in Ashburn, faces up to 100 years in federal prison after he admitted in U.S. District Court in Alexandria to operating a fraud scheme that bilked $53 million from banks throughout the country.

"Mr. El-Atari's lavish lifestyle was financed on repeated deception which ultimately caused tens of millions of dollars in losses to the banks," Shawn Henry, assistant director in charge of the FBI's Washington, D.C., field office, said in a statement. "This type of greed and wanton disregard for others substantially harms the financial industry and consumers."

In May 2009, El-Atari, 31, was thought to have fled the country after creditors—several of them banks—filed a petition in U.S. Bankruptcy Court against him seeking millions of dollars in unpaid debt. He was arrested in Austin, Texas, in January.

According to court documents, El-Atari used fake life insurance documents containing falsified policy numbers, coverage dates, cash values, assignee names as collateral to acquire loans from banks in Virginia, Maryland, Ohio and Tennessee. At one of the banks, El-Atari reportedly paid an employee to help make his loan applications appear legitimate, the Washington Examiner reported.

Authorities said El-Atari would then use his loan money to finance his posh lifestyle.

A son of Jordanian immigrants, El-Atari was well known in Loudoun for his love of expensive cars, of which he once owned two Lamborghinis, two Ferraris and a Bentley Continental, among others. In 2007, he paid $3.5 million for two Original Steakhouse restaurants: the one in Ashburn and another in Maryland. He also owned a nearly $4 million mansion on Belmont Station Drive in Ashburn. Built in 2008, the house has a circular driveway paved in stately red bricks and enough garage space to house a fleet of vehicles. He also owned the empty lot next to the house, property records show.

Currently, the 8,000-square-foot house sits empty, and is controlled by El-Atari's defrauded creditors, who intend to sell it to recoup some of their losses.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alexandria, could not comment where El-Atari fled to after he left the country or why he was found in Texas. He did say, though, that a reporter from Brazil recently called to inquire about the case. That reporter told Carr that El-Atari was suspected of faking his own death in Brazil.

When searched online, El-Atari’s name came up in numerous Portuguese-written Brazilian news websites.

El-Atari will be sentenced on July 30. He faces up to 30 years in federal prison for each of three bank fraud counts and 10 years for one money laundering count.