Bribe scandal US immigration employee sentenced
September 22 2009 by Matt Jones
Bribery in US immigration scandal
A US Citizenship and Immigration employee accepted a $100,000 bribe to bring illegal aliens though US immigration. He was sentenced yesterday.
Hasmukh Patel, 53, used his mother’s ill health as a way to bring in illegal immigrants into the country. He was caught on camera verifying that he was receiving a $100,000 bribe to bring the foreigners in illegally.
On the US visa application Patel made claims that the immigrant couple would stay in his house and have paid work looking after is mother, whose health was deteriorating. The husband’s brother who was already living in the US made the payment to Patel.
It was later proven that the immigrant family never worked in the house but were given a tour so that they could answer questions about the layout of the house by immigration investigators. The husband of the couple was in fact working for the US government and wore the hidden camera that caught the misdeed taking place.
Patel made salary payments to the illegal couple for the work that was supposed to be taking place in his house but the investigation revealed that these were paid back to him.
Patel was sentenced to 3 years and 4 months in prison to which will be followed by 3 years of supervised release. He was also ordered to perform 100 hours of community service.
Sally Quillian Yates, Acting United States Attorney said: “Hasmukh Patel abused the public trust by accepting a bribe to bring aliens to this country illegally. His corruption has now landed him in prison”.
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