The father of top-flight NBA prospect Shabazz Muhammad is now being held in a federal prison on charges he swindled as much as $2.5 million from several banks in a mortgage loans scheme.
From 2006 to 2009, Ronald Holmes and his partners obtained “mortgage loans by fraudulent means to buy houses,” according to the federal indictment, a copy of which was obtained by The Las Vegas-Review Journal. The address listed for Holmes in the indictment matches the one given by Shabazz and his younger brother in a recent traveling basketball team program. In 1999, Holmes also pled guilty to using fraudulent bank statements in order to obtain ill-gotten mortgages. According to The Review, a plea agreement required him to pay a restitution fee of roughly $78,000 to the banks and credit unions he perpetrated the fraud against.
The Review-Journal added the U.S. attorney’s office is seeking to recover some $2.5 million from Holmes, who remains jailed at a federal facility pending a hearing.
Shabazz played one year at UCLA before declaring for the NBA draft. UCLA recruited him out of nearby Bishop Gorman High School and his brother, Rashad, 18, is set to attend San Jose State on a hoops scholarship next year. As for Shabazz, even his age became a bone of contention recently when his father was forced to admit his son is 20, and not 19 as he had previously claimed.
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