Sentencing for insurance fraud in Hitching Post fire postponed again

June 05--CHEYENNE -- A New Jersey man scheduled to be sentenced Friday for committing insurance fraud in connection with the 2010 Hitching Post Inn fire has had his sentencing hearing postponed again.

Falgun Dharia was set to be sentenced in a federal courtroom in New York for a single count of conspiring to commit insurance fraud.

His case transferred to the U.S. District Court of Eastern New York last summer so he could plead guilty to the insurance fraud as part of a plea agreement reached in the case.

A U.S. District Court of Wyoming grand jury indicted the former Hitching Post owner four years after the fire with six crimes:

- Conspiring to commit insurance fraud by mail and wire.

- Aiding and abetting wire fraud.

- Conspiring to commit arson.

- Aiding and abetting arson.

- Conspiring to use fire in the commission of another felony offense.

- Aiding and abetting the use of fire in the commission of another felony.

Dharia admitted in September to knowing about the arson when filing an insurance claim for more than $13 million but adamantly denies any involvement in the arson itself.

His attorney has said the rest of the counts are proposed to be dismissed at sentencing.

The crime to which Dharia pleaded guilty is punishable by zero to 20 years in prison, no more than three years of supervised release and up to a $250,000 fine.

A sentencing hearing scheduled for November was pushed back to March 4. That hearing then was rescheduled for June.

This time, a new sentencing date has not yet been set.

Dharia also is awaiting sentencing in a bank fraud case charged in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York in July 2014.

The Hitching Post Inn -- a longtime local lodging facility on West Lincolnway that has struggled to regain its notoriety -- erupted in flames in September 2010.

The indictment filed against Dharia says he bought the property in December 2006 for $5.95 million.

One of his partners, Ajay Jariwala of Albuquerque, New Mexico, currently is serving a six-year sentence for conspiring to commit arson. He pleaded guilty to that crime and was sentenced in September 2013.

Around May 2010, Dharia arranged for Jariwala to oversee extensive hotel renovations.

Jariwala, in turn, hired a man named Robert Rodriguez to set fire to the hotel's lodge building.

Rodriguez was sentenced in September 2013 to serve five years in prison for counts of conspiring to commit fraud and aiding and abetting arson.

Rodriguez hired Marcus Trevino to help him set the fire. Trevino was sentenced in June 2013 to serve two years in prison for the same crimes as Rodriguez.

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