Former Club Owner Sentenced in Scam

Man to Pay Millions for Mortgage Fraud

The former owner of a group of Washington area nightclubs and restaurants was sentenced yesterday to nearly six years in prison for orchestrating a mortgage fraud scheme that investigators said was one of the largest ever prosecuted in Northern Virginia.

John A. Tsiaoushis was also ordered to pay nearly $4 million in restitution for the real estate scam, in which he used false documents to repeatedly sell or refinance two houses in Vienna and the Fort Hunt area of Fairfax County, pocketing more than $3.8 million.

Tsiaoushis, 41, formerly owned the now-defunct Shark Club nightclubs in Centreville, Merrifield and Bethesda; the Acropolis and Cloud restaurants in the District; and the short-lived Chics n Wings restaurant in Tysons Corner. Tsiaoushis filed for bankruptcy in October 2005 and pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Alexandria in May.

His attorney, Blair Howard, said Tsiaoushis apologized to his family at yesterday's hearing, at which U.S. District Judge Liam O'Grady sentenced him to 70 months in prison. "He was very emotional. He said he was very ashamed and embarrassed by his actions," Howard said.

Howard said Tsiaoushis spiraled downward after he had trouble meeting expenses as his businesses expanded. "He made some very poor choices with some short-term, high-interest loans and got heavily into debt, and that pushed him into a world of drug and alcohol abuse," Howard said. "It's a very unfortunate situation."

Prosecutors had sought a sentence of up to 108 months in prison. "The defendant committed serious crimes," Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas H. McQuillan and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Dennis J. Early wrote in a sentencing memorandum. "He caused millions of dollars in losses" to lending institutions.

The sentencing came as federal and state investigators continue to examine an upsurge in mortgage fraud nationwide triggered by the decline in the housing market. The Reston-based Mortgage Asset Research Institute recently reported that incidents of mortgage fraud jumped 42 percent during this year's first quarter compared with the same period last year.

Merle Sharick, the institute's vice president for national business development, said the Tsiaoushis case is one of the larger cases prosecuted nationally. "When the market is constricting, you have a lot of companies and individuals used to living certain lifestyles who are doing desperate things to generate money or income," he said.

Tsiaoushis pleaded guilty to mail fraud and false testimony charges. Court documents said much of the scam was centered on a 3,200-square-foot house on Pennycress Lane in Vienna. In 2005, documents show Tsiaoushis sold the house, created false documents purportedly from the mortgage company, opened a post office box and had the settlement company send checks totaling $586,000 to the "mortgage company's" post office box.

Tsiaoushis then deposited the checks.

Using the same scheme, Tsiaoushis sold another house, on Chadwick Avenue in the Fort Hunt area, to a friend for $937,500 even though the bankruptcy court had ordered him not to sell it, documents said. All of those involved in the phony transactions are thought to be friends or business associates of Tsiaoushis's, the documents said.