Nikesh Ajay Patel, 40, who used to live in Windermere, and his ex-wife, Trisha Patel, of Orlando, were both sentenced by US District Judge Paul G. Byron for their parts in a plan to steal money from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and other people.
Orlando con artist Nikesh Ajay Patel Nikesh Patel was given a sentence of 27 years in federal jail. This must run after the 25 years he is already serving from the Northern District of Illinois. The judge gave Trisha Patel 51 months in federal jail. Both must pay the USDA and four other banks back what they should have.
Court records show that Nikesh Patel was charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois in 2014 with a $179 million fraud plot. After being caught, he was freed on bond.
Over the next few years, Nikesh Patel said he was working with the police and using his business skills to get money back for the victims. In fact, Nikesh Patel came up with a new way to cheat the USDA that made him more than $19 million.
Nikesh Patel was going to take a private jet to Ecuador and run away to escape being sentenced in the Chicago case. Nikesh Patel was instead caught by FBI agents at the Kissimmee airport on January 6, 2018, for trying to escape.
After that, Nikesh Patel was sent back to Chicago and given a 25-year federal prison term on June 6, 2018. After that, on December 18, 2019, a federal grand jury in Orlando returned a 13-count charge against Nikesh Patel for stealing $19 million while he was out on federal pretrial release in the Chicago case.
Patel pleaded guilty on February 28, 2023, to all the charges in the indictment. He was charged with one count of plot to commit wire fraud, three counts of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and eight counts of money laundering.
According to the 2019 case, Nikesh Patel made fake loan papers and used a fake name to carry out his plan and conspiracy. Then he asked the USDA to back the fake loans through their Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan Program.
After the USDA agreed to back the loans, Nikesh Patel sold the backed part to Farmer Mac for $19,342,392. The FBI was able to get back $11,321,931, and Nikesh Patel was told to pay Farmer Mac the rest as compensation.
While Nikesh Patel was in federal custody for the 2019 case, he got his wife at the time, Trisha Patel, to help him with a third plan to make money. Nikesh and Trisha Patel came up with a more complex plan between January 2021 and December 2023.
They used a professional pump manufacturer in Houston, Texas. Trisha lied to the USDA by saying she was a top representative of the company at the direction of Nikesh Patel. She said they wanted to grow their business in rural Puerto Rico, which was not true.
The Patels then made a fake lender to make it look like it was giving the business $8,540,000 to help it grow. 80% of the fake loan was backed by the USDA. The Patels then sold that promise to banks and got $7,446,880.
The FBI was able to get back $74,545 in cash and a BMW X7 model from 2022. The defendants were told to repay the USDA and four other banking institutions with the rest of the money.
On May 21, 2024, Trisha Patel and Nikesh Patel both pleaded guilty to an information charging them with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. This was for the third plan.
They were looked into by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Office of Inspector General at the US Department of Agriculture. Assistant United States Attorney Michael P. Felicetta and United States Attorney Roger B. Handberg brought the charges against them.
