Man’s status as citizen may be revoked
Staff report
AKRON
An assistant U.S. attorney will ask a federal judge to revoke the U.S. citizenship of a Youngstown man who has been sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison for failing to disclose his arrests for sex offenses on his naturalization form and to a federal agent.
U.S. District Judge John R. Adams imposed the prison sentence Thursday on Imad M. El Sayed, 46, who was convicted by a jury of naturalization fraud and making a false statement to a federal officer after a three-day trial in April.
Before becoming a U.S. citizen Sept. 17, 2009, El Sayed was a Lebanese citizen. Had he disclosed his arrests, El Sayed would have been denied U.S. citizenship, the U.S. attorney said.
The federal charges arose from El Sayed’s failure to disclose his February and March 2009 arrests on a form he presented at his naturalization ceremony and failure to disclose them to a federal agent during an interview a year later.
Based on his arrests early in 2009, the Trumbull County grand jury indicted El Sayed on two felony counts of gross sexual imposition, but he pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor sexual imposition counts and was put on two years’ probation.
The arrests stemmed from complaints El Sayed fondled two female customers of a Howland beverage drive-through he managed.
Assistant U.S. Atty. Phillip J. Tripi, who prosecuted the federal case, said he’ll ask Judge Adams to revoke El Sayed’s U.S. citizenship.
If the judge does that, it would be up to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency to take any further action, such as seeking to have El Sayed deported to Lebanon after his prison term here, Tripi explained.