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Man accused of CW-1 visa fraud is found guilty after jury trial
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Posted on Mar 30 2022
The jury trial for a man accused of defrauding U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services through the CNMI-Only Transitional Worker, or CW-1, visa scheme has ended with a unanimous guilty verdict.
Jurors in the trial of Halim Khan unanimously found Khan guilty on Monday of conspiracy to defraud the United States.
At his trial, Khan was represented by attorneys Bruce Berline and Joey San Nicolas while Rippon Ahmed served as the defendant’s interpreter.
In her order setting sentencing, U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona Manglona referred Khan to the U.S. Probation Office before setting his sentencing on Aug. 5, at 9am.
Khan was allowed to wait out his sentencing under the court’s previous release conditions.
According to court documents, Khan is one of three other charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States. Khan’s co-conspirators are Servillana Soriano, Aminul Islam, and Faroque Hosen, all of RES International LLC.
The second superseding indictment filed in 2020 states that Soriano, along with Khan, Islam, and Hosen, agreed to defraud the United States by deceitful and dishonest means, for the purpose of impeding, impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful government functions of a government agency, USCIS, in the fair and objective evaluation of applications for CW-1 non-immigrant visas.
It was part of the conspiracy that RES International LLC would, in exchange for money, submit a petition for CW-1 classification that would falsely and fraudulently represent that an employer-employee relationship exists between RES and the beneficiaries under the employment terms set forth in the petition, the indictment stated.
Islam and Hosen have both pleaded guilty to the charge.
Islam was sentenced to serve one week of imprisonment and one year of supervised release last Feb 16, and was also ordered to serve 25 hours of community service, and to pay a $100 assessment fee.
Hosen’s sentencing has been moved to April 4, at 1:30pm.
As for Soriano, a jury found her guilty back in 2021 and she now awaits her sentencing, which is scheduled for May 3, at 9am.
