The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced Judge Malachy E. Mannion sentenced Nazim Hassam, 70, of Bartonsville, on May 13 to 60 months in prison and a $150,000 fine for drug and sex trafficking offenses.

Hassam was also sentenced this week to 18 months in prison for money laundering through a fraudulent pandemic assistance loan.

In April and June of 2020, Hassam applied for and received two loans under the federal Paycheck Protection Program while lying about being convicted of the previous offenses.

Hassam obtained $89,308 and conducted unlawful monetary transactions with the bulk of those funds.

Hassam pleaded guilty to obtaining $61,000 as a PPP loan for Om Sri Sai Inc., a company that owns and operates a hotel in Bartonsville and then transferred the funds from the corporation’s bank account to pay down a personal line of credit he held in his own name.

Hassam’s sentence was enhanced because he committed this crime while on pretrial

release in the drug and sex trafficking case.

Mannion ordered that 12 months out of the 18-month sentence in this case will run concurrently with the earlier sentence, and 6 months will run consecutively, as required by statute.

Mannion also sentenced Om Sri Sai Inc. to five years of probation for sex and drug trafficking violations and ordered the company to forfeit $2 million to the government, and Pocono Plaza Inn, formerly known as the Quality Inn, Stroudsburg, to five years of probation and a $50,000 fine for maintaining a drug-related premises.

Hassam and the two hotel companies, along with co-defendant Faizal Bhimani, were convicted of sex trafficking and drug trafficking charges after a two-week jury trial in Scranton in October 2020.

Om Sri Sai Inc., a company that owned and operated a Howard Johnson hotel in Bartonsville, and Bhimani, general manager of that hotel, were both convicted of sex trafficking by force, fraud, coercion and aiding and abetting the same, sex trafficking conspiracy, drug trafficking conspiracy and managing a drug-related premises.

The jury also found the Pocono Plaza Inn guilty of managing a drug-related premises, and Hassam, part-owner and vice president of Om Sri Sai and managing shareholder of both hotels, guilty of drug trafficking conspiracy and two counts of managing a drug-related premises.

The jury further found all property owned by Om Sri Sai facilitated the company’s sex trafficking and drug trafficking crimes and was therefore subject to forfeiture.

Bhimani was previously sentenced to 180 months in prison.

Mannion also ordered Om Sri Sai to pay restitution totaling $277,630 to two sex trafficking victims.

These convictions marked the culmination of a six-year joint investigation into sex trafficking, drug trafficking and violent crime in Monroe County by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. This case began in 2014 with an FBI investigation into the Black P Stone gang, a set of the Bloods that was responsible for gun violence and drug trafficking in Monroe County at the time.

Police testified Hassam’s hotels were considered high-crime areas and they responded to at least six overdoses at the two hotels, one resulting in death.

Bhimani also traded discounted and free rooms for sex, which sex traffickers would direct their victims to provide, court papers say. Bhimani also warned sex traffickers and drug dealers when law enforcement were present at the hotel, including during the manhunt for Eric Frein in 2014.

Several admitted sex traffickers and drug dealers testified to successfully evading detection by police thanks to warnings from Bhimani. In all, 40 defendants have been convicted federally as a result of this investigation. Other defendants have been charged and convicted in state courts. The investigation has resulted in the dismantlement of the P Stones as well as a second gang, the Brick City Brims, and the disruption of two more, the Blood Stone Villains and the Bloodhound Brims.

Investigators seized multiple kilograms of heroin and cocaine, as well as quantities of fentanyl, cocaine base (“crack”), methamphetamine, marijuana, and MDMA (“molly”), and took at least 10 illegal firearms off the streets.