A Yonkers man who filed for individual bankruptcy because of business debts doesn’t actually have an official business.
Yehya M. Al-Saidi declared $2,700 in assets and nearly $1.4 million in liabilities in a Chapter 7 liquidation petition filed Aug. 19 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, White Plains.
The petition states that his indebtedness is primarily business debts. But elsewhere it says Al-Saidi is not a sole proprietor of any business and his occupation is “store clerk,” for which he makes less than $2,200 a month.
The clue to his business is that nearly $1.3 million of his debt is owed to the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance for “cigarette tax penalties.”
A monthly report by the agency also ranks Al-Saidi as the 74th most delinquent individual taxpayer in New York and says he owes $1,295,794 in cigarette taxes.
The state tax warrant was incurred in 2014, according to the bankruptcy petition.
That was the year, according to a Department of Taxation press release, that a state cigarette strike force arrested Al-Saidi and another man and seized 1,127 cartons of cigarettes and 45,644 counterfeit tax stamps.
Also in 2009, a man named Yehya Al-Saidi, of Yonkers — but alternately referred to in court records as Yehya Alsaidi — was indicted by a Westchester County grand jury for possession and transport of unstamped or unlawfully stamped cigarettes.
Al-Saidi made $26,400 last year and $18,300 in 2020 in wages and unemployment compensation, according to his petition. His $2,700 in assets consist of furniture and furnishings, clothing and $20 in a bank account. He also expects a possible $27,900 payment for injuries sustained in a March car accident
Besides the cigarette taxes, his liabilities include $50,883 in credit card debts and $23,497 for a BMW M3 sports car lease.
Al-Said is represented by Nassau County attorney Mark E. Cohen.
