From the U.S. Attorney:
Chicago Attorney Indicted on Immigration Fraud Charges
CHICAGO — A Chicago attorney has been indicted on federal fraud charges for allegedly providing false and fraudulent information to U.S. authorities to obtain immigration benefits for his foreign national clients.
GERARDO DEAN owned a law office in Chicago and represented a company that operated skilled-nursing facilities. An indictment returned in U.S. District Court in Chicago alleges that Dean conspired with a company employee, FELICITAS CORDERO, to provide false and fraudulent information to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on behalf of individuals in the Philippines who were seeking U.S. visas.
Specifically, Dean and Cordero filed and caused to be filed fraudulent H-1B and EB-2 visa petitions representing that the foreign nationals had managerial, supervisory, or higher-level jobs waiting for them at the company, when in actuality Dean and Cordero knew that the foreign nationals would work for the company as staff or registered nurses at lower rates of pay than what was stated in the visa petitions, the indictment states.
Dean and Cordero also allegedly instructed the foreign nationals to provide false information about the purported managerial, supervisory, or higher-level jobs during their overseas consular interviews.
Dean and Cordero did so knowing that U.S. immigration officials had a higher likelihood of approving H-1B or EB-2 visa petitions that stated the employer would hire a foreign national in a managerial, supervisory, or other higher level position, the indictment states.
The charges allege that Dean and Cordero collected money from foreign nationals whom they helped fraudulently obtain the visas to work at the company, and that Dean also collected money from the company for his fraudulent conduct.
The indictment charges Dean, 58, of Park Ridge, Ill., and Cordero, 76, of Buffalo Grove, Ill., with one count of conspiracy to commit immigration fraud and three individual counts of immigration fraud. Dean and Cordero were arraigned Wednesday before U.S. District Judge Manish S. Shah and pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The indictment was announced by Morris Pasqual, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Sean Fitzgerald, Special Agent-in-Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Chicago, Mark Woods-Hawkins, Special Agent-in-Charge of the U.S. Department of State Diplomatic Security Service’s Chicago Field Office, and James Mead, Special Agent-in-Charge, Great Lakes Region, U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General. The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Prashant Kolluri.
The public is reminded that an indictment contains only charges and is not evidence of guilt. The defendants are presumed innocent and entitled to a fair trial at which the government has the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
