By Joseph Ax
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The son of U.S. Representative Chaka Fattah of Philadelphia was found guilty on Thursday of defrauding banks to obtain business loans he used for personal expenses, including buying jewelry and paying casino gambling debts.
Chaka Fattah Jr., 33, whose father is charged with corruption in an unrelated case, was convicted at trial in Philadelphia federal court of securing hundreds of thousands of dollars in fraudulent loans from several banks to fund a lavish lifestyle, federal prosecutors said.
The elder Fattah, an 11-term Democratic congressman, was indicted in July in connection with alleged bribery and misuse of federal, charitable and campaign funds. He has denied those charges, which are separate from the fraud that his son was accused of perpetrating.
In a telephone interview, the congressman said the judge had barred his son from introducing key evidence and that prosecutors had sought to sway the jury unfairly by focusing on his son's expensive clothes and fancy meals.
The prosecution of his son, he said, was politically motivated.
"It's really an attempt to get me," said Fattah. The congressman is scheduled to go on trial in May.
Hours after the verdict, Fattah Jr. told an NBC TV affiliate in Philadelphia that he expected the conviction to be overturned on appeal.
"I'm not going to face any time in prison," he said.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Philadelphia, which is prosecuting both men, said, ""We cannot comment on pending matters."
The younger Fattah was charged alongside his business partner, Matthew Amato, who cooperated with authorities during the probe by wearing a wire.
Amato pleaded guilty last year as part of a deal with prosecutors.
In addition to the bank fraud, prosecutors also said Fattah worked for a company that received money from a local school district in order to provide education to at-risk children. While there, authorities said, he inflated the budgets submitted to the school district and pocketed the extra money.
He was also charged with failing to pay income taxes.
Fattah, who acted as his own attorney at trial, claimed his businesses were legitimate and that any budgetary discrepancies at the school were due to error, not malfeasance.
The jury convicted Fattah of 22 of the 23 counts he faced. His sentencing is scheduled for February.
The case against Chaka Fattah Jr. is U.S. v. Fattah, No. 14-409, and the case against Chaka Fattah Sr is U.S. v. Fattah, No. 15-346, both in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.