A decade ago, Ohio’s former deputy treasurer fled the country to avoid a bribery conviction
A decade ago, former Ohio Assistant Treasurer Amer Ahmad fled the country to avoid federal conviction in connection with a bribery and kickback scheme. He traveled to San Diego, walked to Mexico and flew to Pakistan with a suitcase full of cash.
During his escape, Ahmad kept a diary titled “Journey to Freedom: Who Said Escaping Injustice Would Be Easy?” Pakistani authorities intercepted him in Lahore and he spent over a year in prison there.
It is the bizarre story of how a financial expert trained at an elite university amassed power in the state treasury, how he used this power to enrich himself, and how the FBI uncovered this conspiracy.
Retired FBI agent Jeff Williams joined the Ohio Politics Explained podcast to uncover the details of this nearly forgotten public corruption case. Williams was team leader of a Columbus-based public corruption team that investigated the case.
Who is Amer Ahmad?
Ahmad grew up in North Canton, earned a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and an MBA from Harvard. After working in financial markets in Chicago, he and his wife moved to Columbus, where Democrat Richard Cordray hired Ahmad as the state’s treasurer.
When Cordray became attorney general, Ahmad remained in the treasurer’s office and Democrat Kevin Boyce, the newly appointed treasurer, promoted Ahmad to deputy treasurer.
After Boyce lost the 2010 election to Republican Josh Mandel, Ahmad got a job as Chicago city auditor, a job he left shortly before his indictment on federal charges.
The bribery system
In 2009, Ahmad overhauled the state’s investment strategy and put his high school friend Doug Hampton on the state’s dealer list. Hampton earned $3.2 million in fees and funneled more than $500,000 to Ahmad through two other men, attorney Noure Alo and small business owner Joe Chiavaroli.
The bribery scheme is not what initially caught the FBI’s attention, Williams says. The investigation began in early 2010, when a major bank reported that Alo had offered his lobbying services to secure government contracts to manage billions of dollars’ worth of state pension funds.
The Dayton Daily News reported in May 2010 that another bank had hired Alo as a lobbyist. Alo had no lobbying or banking experience, but was very close to Ahmad.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was investigating the banking affairs while the FBI was investigating the other plot, Williams said.
Eventually, all four men pleaded guilty to federal court charges. Ahmad pleaded guilty to bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery, wire fraud and money laundering and was released on bail pending sentencing.
Escape, a diary and 16 months in Pakistani prisons
In April 2014, Ahmad flew from Chicago to San Diego, crossed the border into Tijuana on foot, flew to Mexico City and tried to convince the Pakistani embassy that he was someone else and needed a new passport, according to a diary he kept. When authorities refused to give him the new documents, he asked his taxi driver for a fake passport.
He ended up in Lahore, where authorities arrested him on the basis of the forged documents. American officials attempted to extradite Ahmad. When this failed, U.S. District Judge Michael Watson sentenced Ahmad in absentia to 15 years in prison.
In August 2015, Ahmad gave up his resistance to returning to the United States and federal agents picked him up. Watson told Ahmad he didn’t think he would ever see him again.
“Spending 16 months in a third world prison was the consequence of my own actions,” said Ahmad Watson. He thanked his parents for “sticking with me” and told them: “Please stay with me. I will make you proud again.”
Findings
Williams said he was astonished by how much money Hampton made in commissions on government trades and how Ahmad managed to fool people in the state treasurer’s office. There were warning signs: A little-known firm, Hampton Capital Management, ended up getting the vast majority of government trades with large institutional investment firms.
“I never understood why there weren’t other people who were more alert and realized what was going on,” Williams said.
