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Woman pleads guilty to mail fraud charges
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Posted on Mar 11 2012
A woman indicted in federal court on charges of stealing $27,000 in professional services fees and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services filing fees paid by alien workers pleaded guilty on Friday.
Maria Nina Dolot Castro pleaded guilty to three counts of mail fraud as part of a plea deal. She was represented by court-appointed counsel Steven Pixley.
As part of the deal, the U.S. government will drop the remaining charges of five counts of mail fraud, four counts of altering a postal money order, and four counts of passing an altered postal money order.
Castro will be sentenced on June 14, 2012 at 9am.
U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona vacated the jury trial scheduled for March 19, 2012.
According to the indictment filed in January, Castro, through her scheme of stealing clients’ payments for professional services and USCIS filing fees, defrauded clients and her employers of about $27,000.
Castro worked as an administrative assistant, first with the Law Office of Danilo T. Aguilar, then with BDC Consultancy, LLC, a Saipan-based visa processing company. In both jobs, she personally collected payments from clients for professional services and application filing fees.
Beginning October 2009 and up to Jan. 5, 2011, she stole the payments made by non-U.S. citizens who were petitioning or applying for immigration benefits.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Castro in August 2011 for mail fraud after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security investigated complaints of several persons that their applications and fees for federal immigration benefits were not being filed with the USCIS.
The Office of the Attorney General also filed a criminal case charging Castro with theft by deception and theft, for the same case. The OAG, however, subsequently dropped the charges after the indictment was filed in federal court.
