Fattah used connections, Roxborough roomie says

CHAKA FATTAH JR. had connections, a name and access - and he dreamed big - a former roommate and business partner testified at Fattah's federal trial yesterday.

"He had a name. His father's a congressman," Matthew Amato told a federal jury.

Fattah could get in the front of lines at clubs and get hard-to-get seats at restaurants. How?

"Just by saying, 'Hey, I'm Chaka Fattah Jr. Can I have a table or get in front of the line?' " Amato said.

With that access, Amato testified, he thought Fattah's idea of launching a high-end luxury concierge service for "high-net-worth individuals" would be successful.

Fattah, 32, is facing charges that he defrauded banks, filed false income-tax returns and cheated the Philadelphia School District. Prosecutors contend he used money obtained fraudulently to fund a lavish lifestyle.

Fattah, who is not a lawyer, is acting as his own attorney.

Amato, 33, told jurors that he became friends with Fattah when they were freshman roommates at Drexel University in 2000. About 2002, he said, they moved to an apartment on Henry Avenue in Roxborough, where they lived rent-free, Amato said.

"He [Fattah] had a hookup. Somebody he knew owned the apartment building," Amato said.

It was in 2005 that Fattah and Amato started to work on a "luxury concierge company," called American Royalty, targeted to "high-net-worth individuals," Amato said.

He said he and Fattah created a business plan, which contended that American Royalty could procure jet memberships, sporting-event tickets, high-end clothes and more for customers.

But under questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Gray, Amato said, "It was all from our minds, made up."

Asked by Gray how they were going to fund the business, Amato said he was asked by Fattah to get three bank lines of credit.

In 2005, Amato went to three banks - PNC, Wachovia and Sun National - claiming to be the CEO or owner of "CFJA," or Chaka Fattah Jr. & Associates.

"I told them it was for a business that Chaka was starting and I wanted to get into the business," Amato testified.

Amato received a total of $65,000 in lines of credit from the banks. He wrote checks totaling $62,500 to Fattah or to a consulting company created by Fattah, called 259 Strategies.

About $45,000 of that was used to buy a BMW, which Amato said he mostly drove around.

"We would use it to show that we were successful, to put on the image of success," Amato testified, though admitting that none of the small number of executives they tried to market American Royalty to ever saw the BMW.

Amato said after a year of trying to make something of American Royalty, with his being in debt, and with Fattah repeatedly "telling me he had this person ready to sign," but nothing coming of it, Amato said he walked out of the Henry Avenue apartment and planned not to talk to Fattah again.

Not until 2011.

That year, two FBI agents visited him. Amato then agreed to cooperate and to tape-record conversations with Fattah.

Amato last year pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to obtain bank loans in relation to the three loans.

The prosecution yesterday played three recorded conversations between Amato and Fattah from 2011. The talks sounded like old friends catching up.

By that time, Fattah, according to his own words, was successful, making good money working with Delaware Valley High School, a for-profit company that received money from the Philadelphia School District to run alternative schools for at-risk kids.

A talkative Fattah boasted to Amato about how he helped David Shulick, the head of DVHS, open a school on Kelly Drive in East Falls despite opposition from a community group.

"I met with my dad," Fattah told Amato in a July 2011 recording, referring to Chaka Fattah Sr., the longtime Democratic congressman who represents parts of Philadelphia and Montgomery County.

Fattah said his father suggested starting another community group to counter the group that didn't want the school.

It was called the "East Falls something Business Development Council, some s--- like that," Fattah told Amato in the recording. Fattah said that through connections, he and others got letters in support, and then at a School Reform Commission meeting, the SRC chairman noted there was a group supporting the school, and banged the "f---ing gavel down," approving the deal.

Fattah, who began his cross-examination of Amato late yesterday, at times raised his voice toward his former roommate.

Fattah showed Amato a membership card for a private jet company with his name on it and "American Royalty" below it.

"Isn't it true we could have accessed jet membership based on this, Mr. Amato?" Fattah asked.

"Based on this, yes," Amato said.

"Did we ever have any conversations about cheating any customer, ever?"

"No," Amato said.

Fattah also elicited from Amato that they got front-row 76ers tickets for one customer, Mikel Jones, a personal-injury lawyer.

On Twitter: @julieshawphilly