Byju Raveendran, founder of Byju’s, allegedly tried to persuade a Nebraska businessman to leave the United States to avoid testifying in federal court about questionable activities he witnessed while working with the executive branch controversial, the businessman said during a court hearing Thursday, according to Bloomberg. report.

William R. Hailer, the businessman in question, revealed that Raveendran had sent him a plane ticket to Dubai just two days before his testimony on Raveendran’s efforts to regain control of parts of the empire educational institution of Byju which a court-appointed administrator had seized. . A copy of the nearly $10,700 ticket was presented in court Thursday.

Raveendran reaffirmed a job offer with a salary of $500,000, urging Hailer to immediately go to Dubai and start working, Hailer told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John T. Dorsey at a hearing in Wilmington, Delaware, the report said.

“He encouraged me not to testify,” Hailer said. “He said I should come to Dubai and he said the salary would start from day one.”

Judge Dorsey noted that Hailer’s testimony warranted referring the allegations to federal prosecutors. Typically, this process involves the judge sending a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice describing potential criminal activity, after which federal prosecutors decide whether to open an investigation.

According to a court filing by Hailer, Raveendran attempted to regain control of his struggling edtech empire, which is under court scrutiny in India, where the parent company is based, and the United States, where some of its most valuable units. .

Earlier this year, Judge Dorsey arrested another Byju associate for contempt of court for fleeing the United States just before his testimony.

According to a filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, Raveendran tapped Hailer, a former political consultant, to help him buy out U.S. creditors who were owed more than $1.2 billion on a loan . The goal was to exchange this debt for ownership of Epic!, an educational software company. However, the plan ultimately failed.

“Over the past few months, I have been used as a pawn in Byju’s manipulation of the law,” Hailer wrote in his testimony filed earlier this week. He is scheduled to testify today in federal court on behalf of a trustee who plans to sell Epic! to raise funds for Byju’s creditors, including US lenders, according to the report.

Raveendran has denied any wrongdoing in his previous responses to the lenders’ allegations, arguing that his actions were a justified response to aggressive tactics used by creditors who specialize in extracting money from struggling companies.