By Shawn Henry 
A federal judge has sentenced a former Nashville-area car dealer to 42 months in prison after a jury convicted him on multiple fraud charges tied to a multimillion-dollar financing scheme. Mark Janbakhsh of Brentwood, Tennessee, the chief executive officer and majority owner of Auto Masters, was found guilty of orchestrating a plan that fraudulently obtained more than $24 million from lenders.
According to the Department of Justice, the scheme ran from approximately 2013 to 2017 while Auto Masters maintained lines of credit with Capital One and First Tennessee Bank, now known as First Horizon Bank. Prosecutors said Janbakhsh worked with his brother, Ron Janbakhsh, and employees Steven Piper and Christian Quiroz to submit false documentation that inflated the value of dealership collateral. Authorities reported the falsified records allowed Janbakhsh to draw funds he was not entitled to access.
Investigators also determined that during Auto Masters’ 2017 bankruptcy proceedings, Janbakhsh lied under oath about the fraud. After learning federal agents were attempting to speak with co-conspirators, he offered more than $300,000 to one individual in an effort to persuade him to leave the jurisdiction and interfere with the investigation.
During the trial, the government called a former head of information technology at Auto Masters who worked at the dealership from 2001 until 2015. The witness admitted assisting in deleting emails and later recording hundreds of conversations beginning in 2015. Defense attorneys questioned the witness about blog posts referencing “lizard people,” attempting to challenge his credibility. Despite the unusual line of questioning, the jury convicted Janbakhsh and his co-conspirators.
The court ordered Janbakhsh, Piper and Quiroz to pay $11,272,521.20 in restitution and serve one year of supervised release following their prison terms. Ron Janbakhsh was ordered to pay $4,185,478 in restitution and serve one year of supervised release in addition to his sentence. Janbakhsh is scheduled to serve his federal prison term as ordered.
Eve Nowell