Judge scoffs at 'Chip' Fattah's $3 million demand

A federal judge on Thursday rebuffed Chaka "Chip" Fattah Jr.'s demand for $3 million to compensate him for earnings he said he lost because of publicity surrounding the 2012 investigation that eventually sent him to prison on bank- and tax-fraud charges.

In a six-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Savage rejected Fattah's assertion that law enforcement leaks to reporters during the probe cost him his job and so badly tarnished his reputation that it prevented him from finding other work.

Rather, Savage wrote, "any losses Fattah sustained were the result of his failure to return to work … and his own criminal conduct."

The decision came two weeks after a civil trial in which Fattah – the 34-year-old son of former U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.) – admitted he was unprepared and served as his own lawyer and sole witness in his case against the federal government.

Again and again in his opinion, Savage used the words his fault to describe the various quandaries in which Fattah found himself in the months after FBI and IRS agents raided his Ritz-Carlton condo in 2012.

In an emailed statement from the federal detention center in Oklahoma City where he is two years into a five-year sentence, Fattah called the judge's decision a letdown.

"I have enormous respect for the district court but the decision today is disappointing," he said. "At the appropriate time, I will ask the district court for reconsideration."

Federal prosecutors during his 2015 criminal trial painted Fattah as a con artist who bilked banks, taxpayers, and clients of his many businesses out of more than $1 million.

Yet six months before he was indicted in that case, he sued the federal government, claiming that publicity surrounding the investigation – and not the investigation itself – had cost him a $12,000-a-month contract with a for-profit education company that operated two alternative schools under contract with the Philadelphia School District.

Justice Department officials initially denied that their investigators had anything to do with news coverage of the case. But weeks into the criminal trial, the FBI's lead case agent, Richard Haag, made a surprise admission from the witness stand that he had tipped off an Inquirer reporter to the date and time of the raid and shared other details about the scope of the investigation.

During the civil trial earlier this month, government lawyer Rob Silverblatt called Haag's contact with the media "regrettable" and conceded that Fattah was owed $1,000 under a federal law prohibiting the release of personal information by government officials.

Savage agreed, although he said "the FBI agent did not act willfully nor with gross negligence when he made the wrongful disclosure."

Still, Fattah won't see a check any time soon. Savage ordered the $1,000 be put toward the $1.2 million Fattah owes in restitution from his criminal conviction.