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.
How the Scheme Worked
According to the Department of Justice, the scheme ran from roughly 2013 to 2017 while Auto Masters maintained lines of credit with Capital One and First Tennessee Bank, now known as First Horizon Bank. Prosecutors say 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. That falsified paperwork allowed Janbakhsh to draw funds he had no legitimate right to access.
Lying Under Oath and Trying to Buy Silence
Investigators also found that during Auto Masters’ 2017 bankruptcy proceedings, Janbakhsh lied under oath about the fraud. After learning federal agents were trying to speak with co-conspirators, he offered more than $300,000 to one individual in an attempt to get him to leave the jurisdiction and derail the investigation entirely, an escalation that went well beyond the original financing fraud itself.
An Unusual Moment at Trial
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 to helping delete emails and later recording hundreds of conversations starting in 2015. Defense attorneys tried to undercut his credibility by questioning him about blog posts referencing “lizard people,” an unusual line of attack that ultimately didn’t sway the jury. Despite it, jurors convicted Janbakhsh and his co-conspirators on the fraud charges.
Restitution and Sentencing
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 separately ordered to pay $4,185,478 in restitution and serve one year of supervised release in addition to his own sentence. Janbakhsh is now scheduled to serve his federal prison term as ordered by the court.