Virginia Men Charged In Visa Scheme, 2,700 Fake Papers, U.S. Says

Washingtonpost.com ^ | July 25, 2002 | Tom Jackman

[4Freedom]

"If terrorists or any of their devices are smuggled in..."

If???

[FITZ]

I still don't see why we're bombing Afghan people but allowing these abuses in our immigration laws.

[Brownie74]

You're right. I forgot about the guy that was caught smuggling dynamite across the Canadian border to blow up the Space Needle (or whatever they call it) in Seattle. There are probably other cases also. I stand corrected.

[4Freedom]

"I still don't know why we're bombing Afghan people, but we're allowing these abuses of our borders."

It's called a diversion. Our pandering politicians and the media need to distract the American voters from what's happening on the borders.

Can't be forced to run more news of Mexican military incursions and Yemenis jumping the borders in the headlines, if there's daily news from the Middle East.

[wattsmag2]

This should be tried as treason.

[4Freedom]

No problemo. I know that was just a slip. You're not in denial like members of this administration are.

[Ligeia]

Men charged with immigration fraud
By CLARISSA SPASYK
Journal staff writer

Deborah Munoz didn't understand why she was mailed U.S. Department of Labor forms about the immigration status of people she had never met.

An assistant manager of the Chili's restaurant at Potomac Mills, Munoz said she never signed labor certification applications for illegal aliens, despite the fact that federal investigators saw her signature appear on 230 filings.

``Obviously someone was using me in some fashion," she said Wednesday about the arrest of two Northern Virginia men who allegedly forged the names of local employers on behalf of immigrants seeking green cards.

Samuel G. Kooritzky, 63, of Vienna, and Ronald W. Bogardus, 65, of Arlington, were charged with immigration fraud Wednesday, said Paul J. McNulty, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Kooritzky and Bogardus have been charged with repeatedly filing fraudulent applications for alien employment certification with the Labor Department. They are suspected of filing between 1,425 and 2,700 fake applications.

Kooritzky, an attorney and owner of the Capital Laws Center in Arlington, Langley Park, Md., and Washington, D.C., specializes in immigration law, according to an affidavit. Bogardus is an engineer for the U.S. State Department.

McNulty said immigrant clients paid Kooritzky and Bogardus at least $8,000 for filing their applications.

``[They] are alleged to have misused their positions of trust to perpetrate a fraud not only against the government, but against those individuals seeking employment within our nation's borders," McNulty said.

Kooritzky and Bogardus could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

In most of the applications investigators pored over, Kooritzky was the attorney representing both the alien and employer, according to the affidavit. Some of the applications had bogus job advertisements attached to them.

Munoz said she was alarmed when a supervisor noticed a want ad for a cook in a local paper that told prospective employees to call her about the job.

``I was concerned my privacy was being invaded," she said.

Bogardus often visited managers at local restaurants and companies, identifying himself as a State Department employee who helped foreign nationals find jobs, according to the affidavit.Munoz said she became suspicious after Bogardus visited her at work.

``People [job-seekers] come in by themselves," she said.

Mohd Faraneh, general manager at Shoney's Restaurant in Manassas, said he became concerned when a man stopped by asking about the status of his new job and Labor Department forms.

``I didn't know what he was talking about," said Faraneh, a Stafford resident and native of Jordan. ``I was shocked [people] were using my name on forms and making lots of money."

On Wednesday, Bogardus was being detained at an undisclosed location until he appears before U.S. Magistrate Judge W. Curtis Sewell for a detention hearing at the federal courthouse in Alexandria. The hearing is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Friday.

Kooritzky was released on the condition that he checks in with pretrial services, surrenders his passport and agrees not to leave the area, said Sam Dibbley, U.S. Attorney's Office spokeswoman.

Kooritzky's appearance before Sewell is scheduled for 3 p.m. Aug. 12.
http://cold.jrnl.com/cfdocs/new/ffx/story.cfm?paper=ffx&section=fp&snumber=09

[Brownie74]

It's called a diversion. Our pandering politicians and the media need to distract the American voters from what's happening on the borders.

Many time I have considered the war on terrorism as a wag the dog diversion.

The WTC attacks would not have happened had government been doing their job of controlling immigration and controlling our borders.

Why do you think Bush is on TV everyday promoting this or that but he never says anything about immigration which he knows about 75% of Americans is against? All the while he is trying to manipulate congress into passing 245(i).

It's time to change the oil in Washington.

[Travis McGee]

If "TIPS" will result in these flagrant scams being uncovered, I am for it.

[Travis McGee]

Best idea I have heard in a while:

Rebuild the WTCs 120 stories tall, and put the HQs of the Office of Homeland Security, FBI, CIA, INS etc on the top floors working downward.

[tracer]

The FBI would do well to stake out the Virginia DMV branch near Tyson's Corner to locate said Arabs....

[Brownie74]

Rebuild the WTCs 120 stories tall, and put the HQs of the Office of Homeland Security, FBI, CIA, INS etc on the top floors working downward.

Nice thought but it won't work. None of the above agencies have employees that can read numbers in the triple digits. That is unless it comes to their respective budgets.

[USA21]

bump

[4America]

Thanks for the ping! It's stories such as this one, that makes it obvious to say the least, that people are "GREEDY" and will do just about anything to get money in their pockets. They're selling out our own country to these parasites that don't give a damn about being an American & compromising the safety of their own citizens.

[4America]

If terrorist or any of their devices are smuggled in from Mexico that will be the end of the Bush administration. I would say that the "I" word will become front page headlines.

Mexico has been smuggling these terrorist in through the borders for a while now. You know how they are, they'll do anything for money. Little do they know, that they can enjoy that money now, but does'nt make them any less immune to a terrorist attack. I fully agree with your post.

[maica]

Ever since I started reading (last fall on FR) about the 'neighbors' in Virginia, I have been hoping for anything that would help the average American get some attention from 'the government' when the 'neighbors' are acting suspiciously. A TIPS program has a lot of merit.

[Travis McGee]

I agree, but the problem is always getting the info collated and acted on before the next ice age.

[Uncle Bill]

September 11 Investigation Ties Two More Criminal Aliens To Virginia Address

Virginia DMV and 9-11 Hijackers

Two Men Sentenced For Helping 9-11 Terrorists Get Fake ID At Virginia DMV

Profile: Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles and the September 11th hijackers

NPR: All Things Considered
Copyright 2001 National Public Radio,Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
October 18, 2001

ROBERT SIEGEL, host: This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Robert Siegel.

LINDA WERTHEIMER, host: And I'm Linda Wertheimer.

The attacks of September 11th and their aftermath have led to many changes in the way Americans perform everyday tasks. Airports and airlines have changed their routines; so have mail rooms. In one state, the September hijackings have led to reforms in a seemingly benign system: the issuance of driver's licenses.

SIEGEL: Last month when FBI agents retraced the steps of the men they concluded had done the hijackings, they found that the trail often passed through an unlikely venue, the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles.

Unidentified Computer Voice: Now serving A-6, A-7 at the window number 20.

SIEGEL: According to the FBI, on August 1st, 2001, two of the suspected hijackers had gotten Virginia ID cards from the DMV. They had gone to Arlington, Virginia, found an obliging stranger, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador and paid him $100. In exchange, he took them to a notary public, where he signed a DL 51 form saying that he, a resident of Virginia, knew them to be residents of the state too. They weren't, of course, but he let them use his old address in Falls Church.

The following day, four more of the suspected hijackers got Virginia DMV ID cards. On some of their proof of residency forms, the Virginia residents who vouched for them were their own comrades, who had just gotten their cards the day before. Later in August, another of the suspects got his Virginia ID.

They had all taken advantage of an unusually loose policy which has since been ended. It was a policy that the DMV's own investigators had campaigned unsuccessfully to end before it was linked to at least seven of the men suspected in three of the September 11th hijackings.

Ms. PAM GOHEEN (Virginia DMV): The agency really did try to create a service--a system that would aid people who legitimately needed this type of service.

SIEGEL: Pam Goheen(ph) of the Virginia DMV says that in 1994, the agency liberalized its guidelines for getting an ID card or applying for a driver's license. An applicant would only need the notarized DL 51 form, which showed proof of Virginia residence, and a DL 6, an identity affidavit signed by a Virginia lawyer.

Ms. GOHEEN: The guidelines really made it possible for individuals such as immigrants who may have left their native country under some sort of extreme circumstance or without appropriate identification to legitimately apply for and receive driver's licenses and ID cards. And the guidelines also benefit people who were new to Virginia, who maybe hadn't yet received an electric bill or some other document that would help them establish their residency in order to be processed at DMV.

SIEGEL: Other states required a utility bill showing the person's name and address, or a Social Security card to establish identity. In the populous Northeast, Virginia became synonymous with easy ID. If you were a Brazilian immigrant in Newark, New Jersey, in this country with no visa, you would see ads in the Brazilian-American paper. If you were an ethnic Chinese immigrant from Indonesia, you might see it in a Chinese language paper. If you were a Salvadoran or Colombian in, say, Bridgeport, Connecticut, you might see a flyer in Spanish like this one.

Unidentified Man: (Through Translator) Legal identifications from DMV. (Spanish Flyer) It's so easy. With only your passport you can obtain a legal identification card from DMV. Come with a resident of Virginia and this coupon and pay only $35 for your legal identification card. This is the lowest price in the area. Everything is confidential. Call for more information. Jenny Wren & Associates(ph).

SIEGEL: Unscrupulous lawyers and notaries who were willing to sell their signatures established a thriving, illicit market. The $35 price tag on that coupon only covered them. Drivers who took immigrants in vanloads from the Northeast to Virginia charged them as much as $700. Vlas Martinez, a career enforcement officer, was an investigator for the Virginia DMV for 11 years.

Mr. VLAS MARTINEZ (Former DMV Investigator): It was like organized crime. Groups, reams of people working. It takes a transporter to bring people from out of state. Then it takes another person to receive them at this end and to transport them to the source of the documents; for example, the notary public. And then it takes another person to transport them to the Department of Motor Vehicles office and to help them apply for the identity card or driver's license or permit, whatever they're going to get. So we're looking at a conspiracy there, all the way from the state where they reside down to the DMV.

SIEGEL: What the September 11th hijack suspects did required no genius. It was common knowledge among immigrants that Virginia DMV ID cards or learners permits were easy to get. And you could take that to the DMV where you really lived and file for a change of address or you could use it to open a checking account or to show an employer. Vlas Martinez found that fraud was so rife that some of the addresses provided by the middlemen had dozens of fake Virginia residents supposedly living in them.

Mr. MARTINEZ: One specifically I remember. I had 80 names registered to one address.

SIEGEL: Martinez and other Virginia DMV investigators alerted their bosses in Richmond, the state capital. Mr. MARTINEZ: Back in '98, we did everything that we possibly could to get all the evidence that we needed to convince our commissioner and his staff that this form was really a problem.

SIEGEL: And what was their response to all this?

Mr. MARTINEZ: Nothing was being done that I could see.

Ms. GOHEEN: The agency has investigated these type cases for a very long time; in fact, for years.

SIEGEL: Again, the DMV's Pam Goheen.

Ms. GOHEEN: And since the beginning of the year, at least, the agency has been aggressively, extensively reviewing our entire list of acceptable documents for proof of identity and residency.

SIEGEL: But that raises a question of what defines aggressive or extensive when a state agency's practices are under fire? On February 26th of this year, federal authorities in Virginia busted a ring led by a Falls Church notary public and real estate agent named Jennifer Wren, the woman whose Spanish language flyer we read a couple of minutes ago. At a bank across the street across from her office, Wren had a safety deposit box with $170,000 in $50 and $100 bills. She was notarizing hundreds of fake residents a month. The middlemen who drove her customers to Virginia pleaded guilty. The lawyer who signed the identity documents had his license suspended. And Jennifer Wren has been convicted of fraud and money laundering.

Federal law enforcement officers, who declined to be identified, told us that she was just one of several corrupt Virginians running this racket, and she alone had a clientele of about 10,000 a year. With the Wren indictment there was suddenly local media coverage of the DMV's problems, but Vlas Martinez still saw no action on the Virginia ID and residency forms.

Mr. MARTINEZ: The driver's license issuing system was reviewed a couple of times, the latest being this year. This went on and on and on--I mean, four years, and nothing was ever done.

SIEGEL: Last spring, Martinez and other DMV investigators wrote a memo to their boss, the agency's inspector general. The last paragraph of that May 2001 report was prescient.

Mr. MARTINEZ: Quite possibly, the scariest aspect of the misuse and abuse of the DL 51 is that we truly do not know to whom we're giving identifications. That person could be the next gunrunner. And it's possible that the person who just drove away from Virginia's DMV could also supply the gun that is responsible for the next drive-by shooting, that accident that claimed the life of an innocent child. And could that customer be the next drug smuggler, or could that person be an international terrorist? It could be and quite possibly is and probably has been. This document was submitted in May of 2001, and by September 11 we still had those forms in use.

SIEGEL: How could a state agency fail to repair a system that was so blatantly abused? Here's what we heard. First, the DMV was mindful of groups that advocate a very low threshold for documentation. The National Council of La Raza, a Latino rights organization, is one such group. Cecilia Munoz is La Raza's vice president for policy, and she argues that immigrants who are in the country illegally should be able to get driver's licenses, for their good and for ours.

Ms. CECILIA MUNOZ (La Raza Vice President for Policy): You gain more by giving people access to licenses because they are in the community. They're driving cars. And you lose something if you fail to do that in terms of public safety because there are significant numbers of unlicensed drivers.

SIEGEL: Then there's the tension between security and efficiency at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Unidentified Computer Voice: Now serving A685 at window number 5. Now serving...

SIEGEL: A modern 20-window automated system of processing customers made going to this northern Virginia DMV bearable. To scrutinize customers, to take time to check their addresses for multiple registrations or to flag ID documents signed by a particular lawyer who was suspected of fraud--all that would made service slower for everyone. As it was, DMV offices routinely disposed of DL 6 and Dl 51 forms after a couple of days, leaving no easily accessible record of whose signatures were recurring in suspicious patterns.

It took the glare of national publicity, when the FBI traced several of the hijackers to Virginia, to change things. DMV spokesperson Pam Goheen insists the agency acted with vigilance.

Ms. GOHEEN: Our goal all along throughout the entire evaluation process, like I said, that had been ongoing was to eliminate the use of the forms. The agency was well aware. The agency had investigated numerous cases.

SIEGEL: But part of the question here is whether the people in Richmond act on the information that your investigators are sending you, and it seems as if they were learning about all this and not getting the response from headquarters that they thought was appropriate.

Ms. GOHEEN: The agency takes these situations very seriously, and we respond with investigations and prosecution when applicable. And in this case we took action. We have eliminated the use of these forms. It was a long and extensive process to get to this point, and I think the agency is confident behind the decision to do that.

SIEGEL: Vlas Martinez, who is now retired from the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, is not nearly so charitable to nor so proud of his old agency.

Mr. MARTINEZ: I actually feel angry today because if some of these terrorists and some people who are presently in custody obtained documents through this system, shame on DMV.

SIEGEL: The very fact that a state Department of Motor Vehicles somehow figured in the story of international terrorism reflects a conflict in our country's approach to official ID documents. In theory we don't require any, but in practice we do--to open bank accounts, to cash checks, collect train tickets or board airplanes. Some Americans carry passports, but most show a driver's license. So informally we've assigned a task of guaranteeing who we are and where we live to agencies that really care more about whether we know to signal when changing lanes. And in Virginia, that clash of priorities kept the door to fraud wide open long after the fraud had been discovered.

---

Hug your kids, the idiots are in charge

Illegal immigrants lobby for licenses

Driver's licenses for terrorists

Immigrants line up for licenses

No driver's licenses for illegals

The wind whispers through the halls of congress, why we need a national I.D. card, we need a national I.D. card....

Driver's Licenses Could Serve as National IDs

Immigrant Licenses Debated ( ILLEGAL ALIENS... AGAIN )

All 50 states agree to upgrade driver's licenses

"Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge for the first time disclosed Thursday the Bush administration is studying ways to set national standards for driver's licenses"

[Sabertooth]

SIEGEL: Pam Goheen(ph) of the Virginia DMV says that in 1994, the agency liberalized its guidelines for getting an ID card or applying for a driver's license. An applicant would only need the notarized DL 51 form, which showed proof of Virginia residence, and a DL 6, an identity affidavit signed by a Virginia lawyer.

Ms. GOHEEN: The guidelines really made it possible for individuals such as immigrants who may have left their native country under some sort of extreme circumstance or without appropriate identification to legitimately apply for and receive driver's licenses and ID cards. And the guidelines also benefit people who were new to Virginia, who maybe hadn't yet received an electric bill or some other document that would help them establish their residency in order to be processed at DMV.

Thanks for posting this.

So, the Virginia DMV guidelines were liberalized to cater to Illegals, and as a result six of the September 11 hijackers obtained fraudulent ID.

Yet even as Virginia tightens its laws, other states are attempting to issue drivers' licenses to Illegals. Other states and municipalities want to use Mexican consular IDs. Sounds like yet more national security disasters waiting to happen.

Fortunately, President Bush strongly opposes all of this nonsense.

Right?

[Uncle Bill]

Right?

The Road to a National ID Card: Bush Homeland Security proposal calls for Driver's License Standardization

He wants to ponder for a bit

Think of all the possibilities. It almost seems planned. It makes some people nervous.

Giuliani supports national ID

Screw Freedom, you need to sacrifice

It's too late.

National ID: An American Horror Story

No national ID card

"Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge for the first time disclosed Thursday the Bush administration is studying ways to set national standards for driver's licenses"

"President Bush's plan for uniform national drivers' license standards would be killed and a year-end deadline for anti-terrorism screening of airport baggage would be postponed indefinitely under legislation unveiled Thursday by House Republican leaders."

"Government officials at the Justice Department and General Services Administration have said they are working on a nationally standardized ID system that could include such security features as digitized fingerprints or encoded magnetic strips. Both would be difficult to forge and easy to check against a national database."

States Seek National ID Funds
"State motor vehicle officials today plan to ask Congress for up to $100 million to create a national identification system that would include high-tech driver's licenses and a network of tightly linked databases of driver information."

States Devising Plan for High-Tech National Identification Cards

Toothy Margaret Carlson Wants To Give You A National I.D. and Keep You Safe

National ID Card Gaining Support - By Robert O'Harrow Jr. and Jonathan Krim - Washington Post Staff Writers -Monday, December 17, 2001; Page A01

Executive Order 13083 And Our Freedom - Both Parties Were Going To Finish You Off
"Worse yet, one of the until-now secret justifications for this action by the governors was to push through a plan for the institution of a national identification card,"

Speaker Hastert Considering National ID Card

National ID Cards weighed by Congress

How the Republicans implemented the Democrats' National ID Plan

National ID

Here's a "Cover Story" so they won't be hung in town square

Amerika, Amerika

Thanks but no thanks, Larry Ellison
Note: Larry Ellison, Oracle Corp. CEO, introduced Clinton as a courageous leader

Sample of Larry Ellison's new National ID Card

Human ID implant to be unveiled soon

Big Blue's Big Brother Lab

U.S. law subsection 666 "dead beat dads" prototype for the National I.D. System

What I Have Learned From The Twentieth Century

National ID - Our Line in the Sand

"If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin."
Samuel Adams (1780)

"We are potentially the most dangerous agency in the country,"
FBI Director Louis Freeh - testimony before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime on June 5, 1997

Preparing for the Terrorist Threat - "October 2000"