A Michigan real estate developer was sentenced to one year and a day in prison for bribing a mayor with cash and home renovations in exchange for obtaining tax-foreclosed properties from the mayor’s city.
According to court documents, Shady Awad provided Richard Sollars, the then-mayor of the City of Taylor, with home improvements to his home and lake house, along with cash gifts, appliances, and other items of value, from 2016 to 2018. Awad also agreed to charge more than $19,000 to his credit cards, and then convert the charges to cash for Sollars.
Awad’s offerings to Sollars were valued at $85,011.73, and the mayor repaid the developer by enabling him to acquire tax-foreclosed properties to redevelop through the City of Taylor’s Right of First Refusal (ROFR) program. Sollars recommended to City Council that Awad be awarded the vast majority of the city’s ROFR properties.
Sollars was sentenced to 71 months in prison for conspiring to accept bribes and engaging in wire fraud. The investigation of this case was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“Mr. Awad and the former Mayor of Taylor unlawfully corrupted the City of Taylor’s real estate redevelopment program, meant to benefit the city and its residents, for their own private gain,” said Cheyvoryea Gibson, special agent in charge of the FBI in Michigan.
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