Riverside Man Ordered to Spend 46 Months in Federal Prison in His Second Federal Case Stemming from Sale of Bogus Aircraft Parts

LOS ANGELES – A Riverside man who previously served a lengthy prison sentence in two aircraft-related cases was sentenced today to nearly four years in federal prison for selling bogus aircraft parts and for falsifying related documents.

Aman Khan, who is also known as Amanullah Khan, 73, of Riverside, was ordered to serve 46 months in prison by United States District Judge R. Gary Klausner. In addition to the prison term, Judge Klausner ordered Khan to pay $1,538,054 in restitution and further ordered the forfeiture of all aircraft components seized from Khan’s former business.

Khan pleaded guilty on June 6 to two counts of fraud involving aircraft parts in interstate and foreign commerce, admitting that he sold fraudulent, counterfeit and unapproved aircraft parts from his Riverside-based company, California Aircraft and Avionics Corporation.

Court documents outline how Khan manufactured various parts – including wheel assemblies and aircraft turbine gas nozzles that had been ordered for NATO jets – and submitted documents that falsely certified the provenance of the equipment and conformity to approved design data.

“By selling fraudulent and unapproved parts to companies in the aircraft industry, [Khan] caused the risk that his parts would be installed on commercial and military aircraft instead of genuine aircraft parts,” Khan admitted in his plea agreement. “In so doing, [Khan] consciously and recklessly caused a risk of death or serious bodily injury to aircraft passengers and to the general public.”

Khan previously was convicted in this district of aircraft parts fraud and export violations. In 2005, Khan was sentenced to 188 months in federal prison for both falsely certifying flight-critical aircraft parts sold by his company and, in a separate case brought in the District of Columbia, for selling parts for military jet fighters to China.

The United States Department of Transportation, Office of Inspector General; the United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security, Office of Export Enforcement; the Defense Criminal Investigative Service; the FBI, and NASA’s Office of Inspector General conducted the investigation that resulted in today’s sentencing.

Assistant United States Attorney Benjamin D. Lichtman of the Santa Ana Branch Office prosecuted this case.