Former CBP agent took bribes to alter immigration data

Sun-Times Media Wire
August 30, 2011 4:30PM

A former federal agent at Midway International Airport was sentenced to nearly four years in prison Tuesday for taking thousands of dollars in bribes to allow foreign workers to stay in the United States illegally.

U.S. District Judge Blanche M. Manning imposed the sentence and granted a preliminary order requiring William Mann, 51, of Munster, Ind., to forfeit $28,500 in bribe proceeds.

Mann was the U.S. Customs and Border Protection supervisor at Midway when he received about $1,500 from at least 19 restaurant employees and their spouses to alter their immigration records, arelease from the U.S. Attorney’s office said.

Mann pleaded guilty in February to one count of conspiracy, three counts of bribery and three counts of immigration fraud.

He was named in an indictment unsealed in June 2010 along with Rogerio Charu, part owner and general manager of the now-closed Sal E Carvao restaurants in Chicago, Downers Grove and Schaumburg.

According to court documents, in May 2005, Mann conspired to falsify immigration records to make it appear as though Charu’s employees were lawfully in the United States. The employees provided passports to Mann, who fraudulently stamped forms and placed them into the employees’ passports.

Mann then accessed the Treasury Enforcement Communications System, where he altered employees’ immigration records to hide the fact that they were subject to deportation, the release said.

Charu, whose last know residence was in Downers Grove, remains a fugitive and is believed to be in Brazil.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/crime/7370 ... -data.html