Wichita ? The owner of a Kansas grocery store is pleading with a federal judge to spare him from prison for his role in a food stamp scam targeting poor people willing to sell their government benefits for cash.

“I have wronged myself and I have been audacious in my ignorance which lead to tremendous tribulations,” Ajami Al-Maleki wrote in a letter to U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten seeking leniency.

The letter from Al-Maleki, the owner of Kansas Food Market, was included as part of a filing Wednesday by his defense attorney, Kurt Kerns, seeking a probationary sentence below the federal sentencing guidelines. Kerns portrayed the Iraqi immigrant as a devoted father of five who came to this country in 1996 and worked hard until he saved enough to open his Wichita grocery store in 2009.

The filing came just days before Al-Maleki’s scheduled sentencing Monday on charges of conspiracy, wire fraud and food stamp fraud. On Thursday, prosecutors asked the court for a continuance to respond to the defense filing, saying it contained multiple issues and factual assertions not previously known to the government.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brent Anderson said in an email Thursday that the government requested additional time because it appears the defense filing was incomplete and possibly inaccurate.

“We understand why Mr. Al-Maleki would attempt to obscure and minimize his role in the crimes to which he has pled guilty, but we hope our written response and arguments in court will present the full picture of Mr. Al-Maleki’s defrauding of the food stamp program.”

In his plea agreement, Al-Maleki admitted that between July and December of 2010, he entered into an agreement with Wally Mikhael Gaggo and others to defraud the Department of Agriculture by giving cash to recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, commonly known as food stamps.

Prosecutors said two small stores — the Kansas Food Market and the Alnoor Grocery and Biryani House — typically paid people 50 to 60 cents on the dollar for the value of the food stamps and pocketed the difference. Gaggo, the runner who was charged in both indictments, testified on behalf of the government and received probation at his sentencing last month.

Kerns downplayed in his filing his client’s part in the food stamp scheme, calling Al-Maleki a “conduit” for the fraud rather than a leader of the conspiracy. Kerns tried to shift most of the blame to Gaggo, whom he contends gave Al-Maleki the idea to trade cash for food stamps.

In bolstering that argument, the defense cited testimony at a co-defendant’s trial in which Gaggo admitted he defrauded the food stamp program with another Wichita grocery store at least a year before doing business with Al-Maleki.

In that testimony, Gaggo described his role as “the person in charge of all the food stamp fraud in Wichita. I was the one — I was the main guy. I was the one to go after people and buy the food stamp card and go after them over 25 location and I have five people work for me to collect the food stamp and give it to me and ask to take them to the store.”

Kerns also claimed it was Gaggo who decided Al-Maleki’s share, which was always less than 20 percent. He included the results of a polygraph examination which purportedly show Al-Maleki was truthful when he acknowledged that in all his dealings with Gaggo he made less than $3,000 as his share of the fraud.

Two indictments filed last year accuse 13 people in a scheme that defrauded the government out of more than $580,000. The two food stamp-related indictments came after months of investigations involving undercover informants, surveillance of the stores and computerized detection systems.

Al-Maleki was indicted for fraudulently cashing $130,000 worth of food stamps in some 750 transactions involving at least 100 food stamp recipients. He pleaded guilty in August in a deal whereby the government agreed to dismiss other counts in the food stamp case as well as a separate indictment accusing him of knowingly hiring an illegal immigrant.

Prosecutors also agreed to recommend a sentence at the low end of federal sentencing guidelines. The defense is now asking the judge to go below those guidelines with a probationary sentence.

The owners of the other Wichita grocery store, Alnoor Grocery and Biryani House, were both sentenced last month to prison. Muhammad Qadeer Akram got 18 months in prison while his wife, Shama Qadeer, received six months in prison plus six months of home confinement.