Shah saga just gets more bizarre

The case of Columbus businessman and convicted federal felon Sawan “Sunny” Shah was strange from the start. And it just keeps on getting stranger. What it doesn’t ever seem to get is over.

It seemed to have been resolved more than a year ago when Shah, owner of a string of area convenience stores, was convicted in an income tax fraud scheme and sentenced to serve 21 months in federal prison and three years of probation, and pay $1.375 million in restitution to the government.

That last figure represents the amount calculated to have been involved in 567 bogus income tax refund checks Shah was convicted of cashing in 2013 and 2014. But that was only part of a much larger racket, as a story by staff writer Chuck Williams reminded us: Almost two dozen people in Georgia and Alabama have been convicted in federal court for defrauding Uncle Sam out of more than $24 million.

Shah’s case appeared closed. Yet 15 months after his conviction and sentencing, there is no record of his having begun serving his time or paying his debt.

Nobody is saying why — not the defense, not the prosecution and not the court. Shah’s lawyers, Stacey Jackson of Columbus and Jeffery C. Duffey of Montgomery, have refused comment. So has the Justice Department in Washington.

Meanwhile, here in Columbus, U.S. District Judge Clay Land, who sentenced Shah, has ordered multiple post-trial filings on Shah’s case sealed — at the request of the prosecution.

Secrecy inevitably prompts speculation, accurate or otherwise. That Shah (whose political connections have proven awkward, to say the least, for some prominent local public figures) apparently remains a free man, while sealed documents concerning his case work their way through the system, won’t do anything to squelch it.

Worthy honoree

Emory University School of Law in Atlanta celebrated its centennial last month with a keynote address by former U.S. President Bill Clinton. But the ex-leader of the free world was not the most honored personage on hand for the occasion.

That distinction went to former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, an Emory Law alum and recipient of the school’s Centennial Lifetime Achievement Award.

In his four terms on Capitol Hill, Nunn earned bipartisan and near-universal respect as a defense expert in his role as chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. His co-authorship, with Republican colleague Sen. Richard Lugar, of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, set the stage for post-Cold War nuclear disengagement, and was a precursor to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, of which Nunn is a co-founder, co-chair and CEO.

Clyde Tuggle, a senior vice president of Coca-Cola, described the evening’s honoree, now distinguished professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech, as “a man of towering character and undersized ego, a relentless warrior for understanding security and peace.”

This story was originally published May 2, 2017 at 5:27 PM with the headline "Shah saga just gets more bizarre."