Woman in CW1 scam gets 8-month home confinement

The federal court imposed yesterday a sentence of eight months of home confinement and two years of supervised release on a woman who pleaded guilty of conspiring with a job-placement agency owner and another person to file petitions for CNMI-only Transitional Worker permits for some alien workers that falsely named the company as the workers’ employer.

U.S. District Court for the NMI designated judge David O. Carter said he is going to recommend that Rosabella P. Cruz be deported immediately to the Philippines.

“I don’t think you should remain in the CNMI,” Carter said.

The judge told the U.S. government that if Immigration wants to deport Cruz they should do it right away and not wait for eight months.

Carter noted that Cruz’s involvement in the conspiracy was short, she did not get anything out of this scam, and that she accepted responsibility and is remorseful.

Carter said he was struck with the information that Cruz was only earning $300 monthly in the past as a houseworker and later got a better salary of $400 monthly as an employee.

“To me, coming from a different environment, that’s very tragic,” Carter said.

The judge also noted that Cruz’s life has a lot of tragedies, including not knowing her biological parents after she was left in a shoebox when she was just a baby.

Carter said it is difficult for him to sentence Cruz to 21 months in prison—as the U.S. government had recommended—when the mastermind, Mariano K. Pangelinan, got only a six-month prison term.

Assistant U.S. attorney Ross Naughton recommended a 21-month prison term. Attorney Michael Evangelista, counsel for Cruz, recommended a sentence of probation or home confinement.

Evangelista said that Cruz cooperated with the U.S. government from the start and he was surprised when she was later arrested. He said his client has had a very rough life since she was a child.

He said Cruz has been supporting her daughter and her mentally ill brother and that her participation in the crime was very minor or limited.

“Her entire life is a tragic,” he said, adding that the defendant’s mistake was she returned to work for Pangelinan. “She has suffered more than enough,” he said.

Evangelista said Pangelinan, the mastermind who profited from the scam, got only six months in prison.

Cruz cried in court as she apologized for what she did. She said she accepted Pangelinan’s offer to work at his company because she needed a job for her family. Cruz begged the judge to give her a chance.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Naughton said that Pangelinan got only a six-month sentence because of his terrible health condition, a factor that is not present in Cruz’s case.

“It’s just what happens when you commit a crime,” Naughton said.

Last March, Cruz pleaded guilty to a count of the indictment charging her with conspiracy to commit visa fraud and to defraud the United States. The offense carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and three years of supervised release.

According to the plea agreement that Cruz entered with the U.S. government, she took a job at ARCH International Co. Ltd. in July 2011 and held this job until January 2012.

While working for ARCH, Cruz prepared and filed with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, on behalf of aliens, I-129 CW visa petitions that falsely and fraudulently named ARCH as each alien’s “employer” when she and Pangelinan knew that the company did not employ these aliens.

The indictment charged Pangelinan, Cruz, and Helen N. Aparente with one count of conspiracy to commit visa fraud and to defraud the U.S.

In addition, Pangelinan was charged with 17 counts of visa fraud, Cruz with 13 counts of visa fraud and one count of false statement, and Aparente with four counts of visa fraud.

Pangelinan was the primary corporate officer of ARCH International Co. Ltd., which held itself out as a job-placement agency that could help aliens in need of CW-1 permits find employment and obtain CW-1 permits.

Cruz and Aparente were employees of ARCH. Aparente has fled to the Philippines.