An Amherst businessman and one-time Democratic insider accused of fraudulently obtaining $3.4 million in federal pandemic aid pinned his initial defense hopes on Louis Ciminelli’s victory at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Hormoz L. Mansouri, a well-known political donor in Western New York, became known for something else in August. The 67-year-old Amherst man became the defendant in a felony fraud case at U.S. District Court.
But a federal judge this week rejected the comparison.
So, Hormoz Mansouri’s 40-count indictment stands.
The Supreme Court’s reversal in May of Ciminelli’s Buffalo Billion bid-rigging conviction narrowed the scope of federal wire fraud laws, and defendants across the state have cited the high court ruling as they ask judges to dismiss indictments and vacate convictions.
Herbert Greenman, the defense lawyer for Mansouri, said in a legal filing that the Supreme Court’s Ciminelli ruling “changes the landscape” for Mansouri as he sought to dismiss and strike language from the March 2022 indictment. Greenman argued that the prosecution’s case against Mansouri is comparable to the theory that was rejected by the Supreme Court in Ciminelli’s case, and that previous cases are no longer good law.
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