California man gets prison for selling bogus aircraft parts

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Southern California man who previously went to prison for selling bogus aircraft parts was sentenced Monday to nearly four years in federal prison for doing it again, prosecutors said.

Aman Khan, 73, of Riverside was given a 46-month term by a judge in Los Angeles who also ordered him to pay more than $1.5 million in restitution, the U.S. attorney’s office said in a statement.

Prosecutors said Khan made various counterfeit aircraft parts at his Riverside-based company, including wheel assemblies and turbine gas nozzles that had been ordered for NATO jets.

He then submitted phony certification paperwork, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office.

Khan pleaded guilty in June to two counts of fraud involving aircraft parts in interstate and foreign commerce.

In selling phony and unapproved aircraft parts, Khan “consciously and recklessly caused a risk of death or serious bodily injury to aircraft passengers and to the general public,” according to his plea agreement.

However, prosecutors didn’t indicate whether any aircraft did have problems because of the bogus parts.

Khan has previous convictions for aircraft parts fraud and export violations. In 1996, he was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison for crimes that included selling phony aircraft parts. Prosecutors alleged he returned to the same business after being released from prison in 2000.

In 2005, he was sentenced to more than 15 1/2 years in federal prison for fraudulently selling aircraft parts and agreeing to sell parts for military jet fighters to China. At the time, prosecutors said he sold refurbished parts as new or claimed parts made of weaker aluminum were made of steel.