Attorneys And Associate Of Immigration Law Firm Plead Guilty To Participating In Asylum Fraud Scheme | USAO-SDNY
Damian Williams, the United States Legal professional for the Southern District of New York, announced that ILONA DZHAMGAROVA, ARTHUR ARCADIAN, and IGOR REZNIK have every single pled responsible to conspiracy to commit immigration fraud. DZHAMGAROVA and ARCADIAN pled guilty these days, and REZNIK pled guilty on August 24, 2022, just about every ahead of U.S. District Court docket Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams mentioned: “The defendants — a partner and wife group of accredited immigration lawyers and a author who labored with them — invented offensive lies to cheat our country’s asylum course of action, which is intended to secure susceptible men and women who legitimately worry persecution mainly because of their race, faith, political beliefs, or sexual orientation. When lawyers cynically exploit those fears for monetary gain by pedaling phony statements and coaching shoppers to lie beneath oath, they abuse the have confidence in put in them and make a mockery of the asylum procedure. With their guilty pleas, the defendants are becoming held accountable for their critical crimes.”
According to the Indictment in opposition to DZHAMGAROVA, ARCADIAN, and REZNIK, other paperwork filed in this circumstance, and statements created in open court docket:
Concerning November 2018 and December 2021, ILONA DZHAMGAROVA, an immigration lawyer, ran the Dzhamgarova Company, an immigration services business based mostly in Brooklyn, New York. The Dzhamgarova Company labored with shoppers — generally aliens from Russia and the Commonwealth of Impartial States — seeking visas, asylum, citizenship, and other forms of authorized position in the United States. Among other issues, the Dzhamgarova Firm recommended particular of its consumers pertaining to the fashion in which they were being most possible to receive asylum in this state, completely understanding that these shoppers did not legitimately qualify for asylum. The firm also ready and submitted to United States Citizenship and Immigration Solutions (“USCIS”) clients’ fraudulent Type I-589 asylum apps, asylum affidavits — statements of an asylum applicant’s private historical past and claimed basis for asylum, typically like allegations of previous persecution — and associated supporting documentation. Members and associates of the agency also coached sure customers to lie under oath in the course of interviews executed by USCIS Asylum Officers and supplied lawful representation to their customers throughout a variety of immigration proceedings.
Among other items, DZHAMGAROVA recommended consumers to request asylum by falsely boasting that they were customers of the lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, transgender, and queer neighborhood who experienced persecution in their native international locations, when DZHAMGAROVA totally recognized that these clients ended up not users of that neighborhood and experienced no these kinds of persecution. Also, DZHAMGAROVA and her husband, ARTHUR ARCADIAN, also an attorney, organized and submitted clients’ fraudulent asylum purposes and affidavits to USCIS, underneath penalty of perjury, absolutely knowledge that these documents at moments contained content falsehoods. DZHAMGAROVA, ARCADIAN, and REZNIK also coached sure customers to lie in asylum interviews executed by USCIS asylum officers and represented these shoppers as they lied beneath oath all through immigration proceedings.
The Dzhamgarova Organization also utilized writers, together with IGOR REZNIK, who knowingly concocted and drafted clients’ fraudulent asylum affidavits so that they could be submitted as section of clients’ asylum applications. These affidavits, which ended up intended to aid clients’ persecution claims, conveyed narrations of clients’ personal histories that had been loaded with falsehoods, such as situations and incidents of alleged persecution that ended up wholly built up by REZNIK.
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DZHAMGAROVA, 46, ARCADIAN, 44, both equally of Brooklyn, New York, and REZNIK, 41, of New York, New York, just about every pled guilty to just one count of conspiring to commit immigration fraud and just about every face a optimum of five decades in prison.
The optimum possible sentence in this circumstance is recommended by Congress and is presented below for informational functions only, as any sentencing of the defendants will be established by a decide. DZHAMGAROVA and ARCADIAN are scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Court Choose Mary Kay Vyskocil on May well 31, 2023. REZNIK is scheduled to be sentenced by Decide Vyskocil on May well 5, 2023.
Mr. Williams praised the exceptional investigative perform of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s New York Eurasian Structured Crime Job Drive, USCIS’s New York Asylum Office and Fraud Detection and National Safety Unit, and Homeland Safety Investigations. Mr. Williams additional thanked United States Customs and Border Defense for its assistance.
This case is remaining prosecuted by the Office’s Funds Laundering and Transnational Criminal Enterprises Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorneys David R. Felton and Jonathan E. Rebold are in demand of the prosecution.