TAYLOR (WWJ) — Former Taylor Mayor Rick Sollars will spend several years behind bars after being convicted on bribery and wire fraud charges.
U.S. Attorney Dawn Ison announced Tuesday Sollars has been sentenced to 71 months — a month shy of six years — in prison for conspiring to accept bribes and engaging in wire fraud while he was mayor.
From 2016 to 2018 Sollars “exercised his authority and influence as mayor” to award the vast majority of the city’s tax-foreclosed properties that the city had or would acquire under its Right of First Refusal (ROFR) program to the company Realty Transition.
That company was owned by Shady Awad, a co-defendant in the case who pleaded guilty in 2021.
Ison’s office says this scheme was “a program designed to allow Taylor to acquire tax-foreclosed properties from Wayne County for redevelopment.” Sollars recommended Realty Transition for the ROFR program, “intending to be influenced and rewarded” by Awad with items and services for his own home, office and lake house.
The court found that Sollars received bribes from Awad totaling more than $85,000 as part of the scheme with Awad. The bribes included items such as home renovations, a humidor, kitchen appliances, a washer and dryer, a Dyson vacuum cleaner, a camera, and cash.
Ison’s office says Sollars also defrauded donors to his reelection campaign, using more than $70,000 for his personal benefit instead of the campaign. Authorities found that Sollars directed his campaign treasurer to provide him with signed blank checks from his campaign account, which he made payable to Dominick’s Market in various amounts, each purporting to represent payment for catering services provided to the campaign.
As known to Sollars, the owner of Dominick’s Market, Hadir Altoon, prepared false invoices for catering services that were not actually provided. Instead, Altoon would provide Sollars with some or all of the proceeds from the cashed fraudulent checks for Sollars’s personal use, according to Ison’s office.
After an evidentiary hearing, the court found that Sollars received $70,362.98 from this scheme, and other wire fraud schemes related to his campaign account.
Ison said as mayor of Taylor, Sollars “pledged to represent the best interests of the citizens he represented and the voters who supported him.”
“Instead, he used his elected office to award city contracts and spend campaign funds for his own personal financial enrichment,” Ison said, per a press release. “Sollars’s conviction and sentence demonstrate my office’s commitment to ensuring that those elected officials who place their own greed above their duties to the citizens in the community will be held to answer for their breach of trust.”