BALTIMORE _ A Baltimore restaurant owner defrauded a wealthy Kuwaiti royal family member out of millions of dollars, a federal jury ruled, rejecting his claim that all the cash he received over several years was simply a gift.
Jean Agbodjogbe must pay back $7.6 million, along with an additional $1 million in punitive damages, for running a fraud against Alia Salem Al-Sabah. Al-Sabah testified that she believed Agbodjogbe was investing her money to buy property to help revive parts of Baltimore, and to buy a Manhattan condo for her daughter.
Instead, Agbodjogbe set up several companies, put himself as sole proprietor and cut her out of the business dealings without telling her, according to testimony.
The owner of Nailah's Kitchen near Belvedere Square had enjoyed a Cinderella rise. A chance encounter with Middle Eastern royalty brought him a million-dollar windfall. But he said he lost the money in a clumsy attempt to redevelop Howard Street, even buying gas appliances without a gas hookup.
A two-week trial in downtown Baltimore revealed he spent her money on a $450,000 house in Pikesville, private school for his children and travels to West Africa for exotic spices.
His attorneys had tried to convince the jury that Agbodjogbe's missteps came not from deceit but inexperience.
The immigrant restaurant owner wasn't the first person one would pick to manage millions of dollars in real estate investments, his attorney said.
"He wasn't even the last person in Baltimore that you would approach and say I'm going to give you a couple million," Sweeting said. "Does it come as a surprise that he would be overwhelmed?"
The case traces back to June 2014 when Agbodjogbe welcomed a surprise customer to his small restaurant on Howard Street: Alia Salem Al-Sabah.
A member of the royal family of Kuwait, her uncle served as head of state; her father, president of the national guard; and her husband, the former minister of the interior. During trial, she put her personal fortune at $24 million.
Al-Sabah had flown in to visit her daughter at The Johns Hopkins University.
In an act of charity, she ordered $10,000 worth of dinners for worshippers at the neighborhood mosque. Agbodjogbe, a devout Muslim himself, immigrated from the West African country of Senegal. They struck up a partnership.
He dreamed of expanding Nailah's Kitchen into a chain of halal restaurants _ "halal" meaning kosher for Muslims _ across the U.S. Al-Sabah flew home and wired him $150,000.
Soon he encouraged her to invest in the vacant storefronts on Howard Street. Once famous for its upscale department stores, the street has long fallen on hard times. The old stores, he told her, come cheap.
In two years, she wired him nearly $6 million to redevelop Howard Street. Her attorneys told the jury that she intended for Agbodjogbe to buy and redevelop the properties on her behalf, meaning she owned them as real estate investments. He was to be her man on the ground.
Instead, he established the real estate firm 9 Jewels LLC in his own name. She wired him money; he bought the properties through the firm. He retained ownership.
Meanwhile, he inflated the prices, her attorneys say. She wired him $305,000 for the former women's hat shop at 327 Eutaw St. The shop cost $180,000.
She wired him $1 million for the old Isaac Benesch and Sons department store at 400 N. Howard St. He bought it for $139,000.
And she wired him $665,000 to construct a Muslim cemetery in Baltimore. He didn't tell her when the deal collapsed, her attorney say.
He spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on architects, marketing firms, contractors and restaurant supplies. Creditors have sued him in state court.
With the projects languishing and money running out, he began mortgaging the properties he had bought with her cash. Desperate, he turned to hard money lenders. One loan came with an interest rate as high as 53%.
He hid the troubles from Al-Sabah. She wired him more and more money.
Now he was attracting publicity as a wealthy restaurateur and developer. He was featured in news stories and met with officials at City Hall.
"Mr. Agbodjogbe is telling big, audacious lies, lots of them," her attorney, Michael MacWilliams, told the jury.
By November 2016, he stopped returning her phone calls. Four months later, she sued him in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.
In his trial defense, Agbodjogbe did not dispute the money or his benefactor. Instead, he argued her money was all a gift _ his to spend freely, no matter the losses.
