A Severna Park man was sentenced last week to a year and a day in federal prison for his involvement in a fraud scheme for over $250,000 in small-business loans during the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland said Monday.

Ayaz Qureshi, 55, was charged in September 2022 with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and pleaded guilty the next month.

Charging documents accused Qureshi of obtaining Paycheck Protection Program loan funds for Yazee Inc. in March 2021 and paying $75,000 to a person initially only identified as "A.S." in exchange for submitting the PPP loan application.

"A.S." was later identified as Baltimore resident Ahmed Sary, who in April 2022 was charged with wire fraud and money laundering for orchestrating pandemic loans for Qureshi as well as a handful of fake businesses. The case is ongoing, according to court records.

The loan application from Yazee Inc. claimed the company had over $100,000 in monthly payroll expenses with a total of 16 employees in 2019, prosecutors said, when in reality the company did not pay any wages to any employees. Sary also fabricated a false unemployment tax form, claiming that Yazee Inc. paid over $1.2 million in wages to employees in 2019, while the company never paid unemployment tax or withheld any federal income tax for an employee.

Qureshi said in court in September 2022 that he did not know he was committing a crime and was scammed by Sary.

"I was an idiot; I trusted him," Qureshi said.

An attorney who represented Qureshi did not respond to a request for comment Monday night.