Woman indicted for allegedly stealing alien workers’ USCIS filing fees

A federal grand jury has indicted a woman on the same mail fraud charges in which she was arrested last August but the case was eventually dismissed.

The indictment charged Maria Nina Dolot Castro with eight counts of mail fraud, four counts of altering a postal money order, and for counts of passing or uttering an altered postal money order.

According to the indictment filed on Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the NMI, through her scheme of stealing clients’ payments for professional services and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) filing fees, Castro defrauded clients and her employers of approximately $27,000.

The Law Office of Danilo T. Aguilar operated on Saipan and assisted non-U.S. citizens in petitioning or applying for immigration benefits for themselves and or their family members as one of its services.

In August 2010, the business’ assets were purchased and employees hired by BDC Consultancy, LLC, a Saipan-based visa processing company, after Aguilar was suspended from the practice of law.

Castro was employed by Aguilar and BDC as an administrative assistant. She personally collected payments from clients for professional services and application filing fees.

Beginning October 2009 and continuing on Jan. 5, 2011, the defendant allegedly devised a scheme to obtain money by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises.

As part of her scheme, Castro allegedly falsely assured clients during initial meetings with statements to the effect that they need not worry and that she would “take care of everything.”

Castro allegedly intentionally provided clients with the offices’ document receipts at the time of payment and converted clients’ cash payments to her own use.

The defendant allegedly cashed clients’ postal money orders at local banks by falsely writing her name in as the payee and endorsing the back, or use their money orders to send funds to her family members in the Philippines by falsely writing LBC (remittance company) in as the payee and herself as payor.

Castro allegedly withheld from mailing clients’ applications to USCIS, or in some cases, never mail their applications at all, because of her theft of the filing fees.

Castro allegedly used postal money orders provided by clients for their own immigration applications, or the applications of their family members, to replace filing fees she had previously stolen.

The defendant allegedly responded to clients’ email inquiries into the status of their applications by falsely claiming they had been mailed to USCIS; or that the applications had been mistakenly sent to the wrong address and returned; or that the client needed to sign a new form now required by USCIS; or would make similar false representations.

Castro allegedly responded to clients’ in-person inquiries into the status of their applications by deceptively showing them USPS tracking numbers which had been used for other clients’ mailings to USCIS or copies of cashed postal money orders, such as ones made out to “USCIS” from “The Law Office of Danilo T. Aguilar” which had been used for other clients’ filing fees.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Castro last August for mail fraud after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security conducted investigation into complaints from several persons that their applications and fees for federal immigration benefits were not being filed by Aguilar’s law firm with the USCIS.

Castro was immediately released on a $5,000 unsecured bond, but under some conditions.

In October or two months later, U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona granted the U.S. government’s motion to dismiss without prejudice the criminal complaint against Castro.

Dismissal without prejudice will allow the prosecution to re-file a new case on the same claim in the future.

Assistant U.S. Attorney James Benedetto in the motion to dismiss said the prosecution determined that there are additional victims that need to be identified before this case is prosecuted and additional investigation needs to be conducted.

In addition, Benedetto said, he has been informed that Castro will be charged in the Superior Court with associated crimes.