Thread: Attorneys Immigration fraud defense blames refugee clients

Immigration fraud defense blames refugee clients
ShareThisBy Denny Walsh
dwalsh@sacbee.com

Friday, Mar. 13, 2009 - 12:00 am

A defense attorney said Thursday that refugees are the culprits in a scheme to gain unlawful asylum status for them, not the attorneys and interpreters who are on trial.

Michael Stepanian urged the jury to start with the fact that the refugees managed to enter the United States illegally, determined to avoid deportation, before they sought out the Sekhon & Sekhon law firm.

"They got here through guile and trickery," he said in his opening statement. "Some had student visas and were never enrolled in school. Some were here on cultural programs but never showed up for them. Some had fake passports. Some snuck across the border."

Stepanian, a highly regarded San Francisco lawyer, made it clear he will challenge any evidence purporting to show it was his client, attorney Jagprit Singh Sekhon, who had the idea to deceive immigration authorities about persecution claimed by clients from Romania and India.

"What was said between Jagprit and the applicants in putting these asylum applications together will be one of the disputes," Stepanian told the jury of six women and six men in Sacramento federal court.

Defense attorney Clyde Blackmon told the jury his client, lawyer Manjit Kaur Rai, was not in meetings with applicants when they first related their stories and written narratives were drafted. Rai later used the narratives to prepare and guide them through asylum hearings.

The defendants are accused of supplying false information for applications and supporting narratives and coaching applicants on bogus stories.

"By the time it got to her, the clients had signed off on the applications under penalty of perjury," said Blackmon, widely considered the best criminal defense lawyer in Sacramento.

The opening statements came on the second day of a trial expected to last at least six weeks. The jury will hear the opening arguments of two other defense attorneys Monday. An 18-count grand jury indictment alleges a conspiracy for profit to dupe the government in hundreds of asylum cases by falsely claiming persecution in Romania or India.

Charged are Sekhon, 39; his brother and also a lawyer, Jagdip Singh Sekhon, 42; Rai, 33; and Romanian interpreters Iosif Caza, 43, and Luciana Harmath, 29.

They face maximum prison sentences of between five and 10 years if found guilty.

The prosecution's lead investigator in grand jury testimony estimated between 500 and 600 refugees remained in the country unlawfully as a result of the law firm's alleged dirty work.

"We've got a big case in front of us," Assistant U.S. Attorney Camil Skipper told the jury in her opening statement. "But don't be fooled; it's quite simple really. It's about lies, lies and more lies."

Referring to Sacramento-based Sekhon & Sekhon as "a well-oiled machine," Skipper said it was "pumping out fraudulent asylum applications." She assured the jury that conversations surreptitiously recorded by an undercover agent posing as an asylum applicant "will put you on the fraud assembly line."

But Stepanian said, "Romania and India are tough places. They have histories of persecution, arrests and torture. These people knew about asylum, knew how to talk, knew what to say. The applications were put together with their input.

"When Jagprit sensed fraud, he wouldn't represent that person any more," Stepanian said.

The applicants "lied on their visas, lied to Jagprit, lied to asylum officers, lied to immigration judges," he told the jury. "And nobody is telling them what to do."

Some of them have negotiated a deal with prosecutors to trade testimony for an ability to stay in the country, he said. "Their only out is to blame the lawyer."

Blackmon told the jury that Rai recognized similarities in the narratives and asked Jagprit Sekhon about it. He told her persecuted refugees were part of a relatively small group in their native countries, and their experiences are inevitably similar.

"This was all consistent with her background and experience," he said of Rai, who was born into the Sikh religion and culture in the Punjab region of India and grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia, and was subjected to blatant prejudice.

"There was no reason for her to believe that any of these applications were false," Blackmon said.

Women are subservient to men in the Sikh culture, and that may have been a factor in her acceptance of the explanation, Blackmon suggested.


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"The defendants are accused of supplying false information for applications and supporting narratives and coaching applicants on bogus stories"

"Charged are Sekhon, 39; his brother and also a lawyer, Jagdip Singh Sekhon, 42; Rai, 33; and Romanian interpreters Iosif Caza, 43, and Luciana Harmath, 29. "

After these defendants are found guilty any and all cases that any of these people had to do anything with should be re-opended and Reinvestigated.

As part of their sentence they should also be forced to pay the Govt cost's for doing so.