Irvine man gets prison time for defrauding Riverside County investor

An Irvine man was sentenced Monday to more than three years in federal prison for defrauding a Riverside County businessman out of nearly $650,000 in a phony investment scheme.

Aiman Alexander Ataba, 52, was ordered to serve 41 months behind bars after a federal jury earlier this year found him guilty of eight counts of mail fraud and three counts of money laundering, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

According to federal prosecutors, Ataba convinced the Riverside County man to invest $648,070 in Ataba’s company, Fountain Valley-based Innovation Validation and Design Technologies. Ataba told the man that the money would be used to manufacture and sell a device that hospitals could use for stem cell research, prosecutors said.

Ataba used the investor’s money on personal expenses, prosecutors said, not on the development of the stem cell device. Those expenses included rent, meals at restaurants and gambling at casinos in Las Vegas and on local Indian reservations.