ALBANY – Assemblyman
Bill Nojay, R-Pittsford, is wanted for questioning in southern Asia as
part of an investigation into a $1 million fraud complaint, the Cambodian press reported this week.
In
a July 7 letter, a local Cambodian prosecutor summoned Nojay and three
others to appear for questioning in a municipal court in the Asian
country, according to The Cambodia Daily, an English-language newspaper.
The
letter — which Nojay says he has not received nor seen — asks the state
lawmaker to answer questions about accusations from Cambodian dentist
Eng Lykuong, who claims a company co-owned by Nojay bilked her out of a
$1 million investment, the newspaper reported.
In a phone
interview Thursday, Nojay said he hasn't received a letter or summons
from the court and denied being involved in any fraud in Cambodia.
Richer San, a former business partner of Nojay's, was arrested Wednesday
in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, for not appearing in court, according to the
report.
"I have not received any papers on this," Nojay said. "I have never met the woman involved (Lykuong), and the gentleman involved (San) left us a year ago. What the nature of the dispute is, I don't know."
Nojay is a one-third owner of Akra Group LLC, a San
Antonio-based company that had been exploring business opportunities in
Cambodia, including a cooperative among local rice farmers.
Until November 2013, San's online LinkedIn profile listed him as senior vice president and director of business development of Akra Agriculture Partners Inc.
According to the newspaper,
Lykuong accused two other Akra partners — Thomas Willems and Sichan
Siv, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Economic and Social
Council — of convincing her to invest $1 million in the company in 2012
in part by claiming two Cambodian companies had signed business
agreements with Akra.
But Lykuong claims the business agreements
weren't real and the company has essentially remained dormant since her
investment. Efforts to reach Lykuong on Thursday were unsuccessful.
The
July 7 letter, according to the report, summoned Nojay, Willems, Siv
and San to appear for questioning in the Phnom Penh Municipal Court,
warning police to "monitor all the routes, in the air, on the ground or
on the water, to prevent [the accused] … from leaving Cambodia for other
countries temporarily." Only San has been in Cambodia since; Nojay and
his partners have remained out of the country, the newspaper reported.
Nojay,
a first-term assemblyman who has traveled the world, said he hasn't
traveled to Cambodia since 2011. His district includes all of Livingston
County and parts of Monroe and Steuben counties.
He acknowledged
having a "long-term involvement in the country," but unequivocally
denied being part of any scheme or fraud. His official Assembly biography notes he was involved in pro-democracy efforts in Cambodia, and his campaign website features photos of him there in the 1980s.
"I
don't know much about it. I don't think it involves me," Nojay said of
the fraud claim. "I think it's a dispute about this woman who I've never
met (Lykuong) and Richer, which is why he's dealing with this thing.
Something you have to understand about Cambodia is they used to just
shoot people, so this is actually a step in the right direction."
A 2003 profile of Nojay by the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester detailed the friendship between the future lawmaker and Siv, the Akra partner and former U.S. ambassador.
According
to the article, Siv — then a Cambodian refugee — and Nojay met as
students at Columbia [Law ?] School in the early 1980s. The two formed a
friendship and later helped lobby for congressional funding for the
Khmer People's National Liberation Front, a guerrilla group that fought
against the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia.
Siv did not return an email seeking comment Thursday.
Nojay
said Akra has an office in Cambodia, but hasn't been very active in the
country from a business standpoint. According to his 2013 financial
disclosure form, Nojay's stake in the company is worth between $250,000
and $500,000.
"We're really not doing much business there," Nojay
said. "We've spent a year and a half looking at things we might do. But
we're not actually trading anything or making anything there. We have an
office there and we're looking at possibilities, but it's an
interesting country."
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