Iman Bambooyani, a well-connected entrepreneur from Chicago, has been charged with transporting individuals across state lines for sex. The businessman, nicknamed “The Wolf of Rush Street,” has been involved in a variety of industries like valet parking, restaurants, real estate, wind farms, and telemedicine. He has a longstanding business connection with Hodjat Ascari, a doctor from Prescott, Arizona, who has also been indicted for arranging secret high-paid meetings with women in Arizona and lying to the FBI.
The indictment states that the two defendants arranged trips for four women, two from Miami and two from Chicago, between January and May 2018. They traveled and stayed in various cities, including Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Orlando, Florida, for sex purposes and paid them cash for sex. Ascari allegedly wrote dozens of checks for $6,000 from his business bank account on each trip, and Bambooyani deposited many of the checks into his personal bank account.
Both men have pleaded not guilty and have been ordered to be released on a $100,000 appearance bond. However, Ascari fled to Iran shortly after meeting with the FBI and remained there thereafter. Weiss, Bambooyani’s business partner, was accused in a separate investigation of trying to bribe a state senator, and Joe Berrios, former Cook County Democratic Rep., was accused of being his son-in-law.
Bambooyani has been involved in various businesses. He co-founded WaveLytix, a company that aims to reduce water consumption in households and businesses. He was also the co-founder of an online parking app that sold for $1.1 billion, a healthcare company that works in telemedicine, and managed wind and solar farms in Illinois and Central East. Bambooyani has invested in many plots of subdivisions that make up the Ascari development, and co-founded several LLCs in recent years that share a business address in Ascari and Prescott. Ascari founded a medical practice in hilly Prescott, Arizona, and developed a large medical and assisted living facility there.