LawFuel Legal Newswire Service –
LEV L. DASSIN, the Acting United States Attorney for
the Southern District of New York, announced that IHAB TARTIR,
35, an immigration lawyer based in Brooklyn, New York, was
sentenced today to 24 months in prison for conspiring to defraud
the United States Department of Homeland Security by helping
others obtain permanent resident cards, commonly known as “Green
Cards,” through sham marriages. The sentence was imposed this
afternoon by United States District Judge GERARD E. LYNCH in
Manhattan federal court. TARTIR was convicted on October 14,
2008 after a six-day trial before Judge LYNCH. According to
documents filed in the case and the evidence at trial:
From 2002 to 2004, and again from December 2006 to
September 2007, TARTIR agreed to submit false Green Card
applications based on sham marriages to the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security. TARTIR paid kickbacks to a broker who
arranged sham marriages between non-citizens seeking Green Cards
and United States citizens willing to enter into sham marriages
for money. In return, the broker referred sham marriage clients
to TARTIR, who charged them fees to submit false Green card
applications to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. TARTIR
met repeatedly with individuals who had entered into, or agreed
to enter into, sham marriages, and he used his skill and training
as an immigration lawyer to advise them how to trick the
immigration authorities into believing that the marriages were
genuine.
In addition to the two-year prison term, TARTIR was
sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay
a fine of $40,000. In sentencing TARTIR, Judge LYNCH stated that
TARTIR was “at the heart of the scheme,” and that TARTIR’s role
as a licensed attorney “brought an additional veneer of
legitimacy to the conspiracy,” adding that he acted “in cold
blood for profit, without any excuse or mitigation.”
Mr. DASSIN praised the work of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and the New York Office of the Department of
Homeland Security’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in
the investigation and prosecution of this case.
Assistant United States Attorneys DAVID B. MASSEY and
NICOLE W. FRIEDLANDER are in charge of the prosecution.
09-032 ###
