INS STILL HOLDING WESTMINSTER (FROM MOLDAVIA) STUDENT

The Columbia Daily Tribune (Missouri) ^ | June 5, 2002 | Katie Tiernan

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One of the 15 students who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor phone service fraud and theft charges at Westminster College in Fulton this spring is being held by the Immigration and Naturalization Service in St. Louis awaiting a deportation hearing, said an INS officer. Nicolai Prasol, a Moldavian national and alumnus of Westminster, will likely go before an immigration judge within the next few weeks, said Chester Moyer, the officer-in-charge at the St. Louis INS field office.

Fifteen international students at Westminster were arrested in November for making more than $50,000 in long-distance calls with stolen access codes. A 16th student was arrested in December. The students all pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges and received sentences including restitution, community service and probation. Prasol’s case became unique from the others on May 10, when he was arrested by the INS at the Callaway County Courthouse and detained for deportation hearings in St. Louis.

Prasol was the only student of the 15 to be arrested by the INS and was the only one to have more than one criminal conviction in the United States. "I know that the justification that the INS used to take action against Nicolai is that Nicolai had two misdemeanor convictions," said attorney Mark Tracy, who represented Prasol during his telephone service fraud case in Fulton. The first misdemeanor, a stealing charge, on Prasol’s record was not connected to the phone fraud charges.

"He’s got two separate unrelated convictions, which would make him deportable in the U.S.," Moyer said. An immigration judge will hear the INS case against Prasol and decide if his crimes involved moral turpitude, or depravity. If the judge decides they do, Prasol will likely be deported. Moyer and Tracy did not know who was representing Prasol during the deportation hearings.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

I sincerely hope they deport him. Two convictions already. We certainly don't need THAT kind of immigrant. It is about time that we start throwing out people who only come here to defraud the system. I, for one, am tired of paying for it.