By admin 
As former Sacramento City Councilman Shahriar “Sean” Loloee’s criminal sentencing draws closer, two more of his co-defendants have pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns.
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Mirwais and Ahmad Shams, who are brothers, each pleaded guilty Tuesday before U.S. Judge Troy N. Nunley to filing false tax returns while working at the Viva Supermarket chain, which Loloee owns. Mirwais Shams was ordered to pay about $15,000 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service, and Ahmad Shams was ordered to pay about $11,000. Both will be sentenced on Nov. 19, after Loloee’s Oct. 15 sentencing. While the Shams brothers do not face prison time, Loloee does.
The final defendant in the case, Karla Montoya, who was also working at Viva at the time of the indictment, has not yet entered into a plea. If Montoya does not plead guilty, her trial is currently set for Sept. 28.
Loloee, who resigned from the council in January 2024, pleaded guilty in April to obstructing U.S. Department of Labor investigations, underreported taxes and fraudulently obtaining nearly $1.2 million in COVID-19 relief funds. Nunley ordered him to pay nearly $2.4 million in restitution, including $240,000 to the IRS.
The criminal indictment, filed in 2023, also contained allegations that Loloee and the other defendants hired undocumented immigrants, underpaid them, and threatened to deport them.
Loloee’s lawyer Tom Johnson declined comment on the Shams’ guilty plea Tuesday.
The Shams brothers are United States citizens with no prior felony convictions, and still work at Viva Supermarkets, they told Nunley Tuesday.
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The U.S. Department of Labor filed a federal civil suit against Loloee over similar allegations in April 2022, about two years after Loloee was sworn into the council, prior to the federal indictment filed by the U.S. Department of Justice in December 2023.
Former workers told The Sacramento Bee they experienced intimidation and discrimination, accounts that aligned with allegations later detailed in Loloee’s plea agreement. The stores, located in Del Paso Heights, North Sacramento, and Rancho Cordova, primarily serve Latino neighborhoods.
The indictment was filed about a year and a half after The Bee reported Loloee did not live in the North Sacramento district he was elected to represent. Loloee remained on the council for over a year after that report, then resigned shortly after the indictment.
When it filed the indictment, the Department of Justice confirmed The Bee’s reporting that Loloee did not live in North Sacramento, but instead lived with his family in his wife’s $1.4 million home in Granite Bay.
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