Hurricane Hotelier in Texas Sentenced for Fraud

The principal owner of a company that runs a hotel in Texas damaged by Hurricane Ike is reportedly going to prison for committing fraud during two other hurricanes.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Houston said 55-year-old Daniel Yeh of Sugar Land was sentenced to 21/2 years in prison Friday. He ran the Flagship Hotel in Galveston.

Yeh also was apparently fined after paying thousands in restitution.

Officials said he pleaded guilty a year ago to filing a false claim related to a Federal Emergency Management Agency program that provided free hotel rooms to evacuees of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

Prosecutors said he billed FEMA for stays with names of people who were not evacuees and did not check into the hotel.