A former employee of the Atlantic City Housing Authority with a history of voter fraud and weapons issues, was arrested today on charges of fraudulently over $30,000 in COVID-19 federal relief funds.
LuQuay Zahir, known as Q, the former coordinator of the Resident Opportunity and Self Sufficiency (ROSS) grant program for the city’s housing authority and the Atlantic City Urban Redevelopment Agency, allegedly made false statements to the U.S. Small Business Administration to obtain funds – unrelated to his public position – from the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan fund.
He faces two years in prison for lying to the SBA, and twenty years on a wire fraud charge.
In a criminal complaint, FBI Special Agent Sarah Gordon-Howell alleged that Zahir applied to the SBA around July 9, 2020, on an advertising sales company he claimed town, saying he had ten employees and $100,000 annual revenues, and for a barber shop he said he owned. Those representations were allegedly untrue.
It’s not clear how Zahir was hired by Atlantic City after his first round of criminal charges. He pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a 12-gauge shotgun in 2005 after he and another man shot at each other. He received five years in prison, but a judge suspended his sentence contingent on his staying out of trouble.
A judge put him in prison in 2009 after his indictment on voter fraud charges related to Marty Small, Sr.’s unsuccessful mayoral campaign that year. He had been a ballot messenger working with the Callaway family political operation and instead of delivering ballots back to voters, prosecutors said he filled them out himself.
Zahir is free on a $100,000 bond.