Kenyan refugees or con artists? Carmelite sisters give $800,000 to couple

By Steve Schmadeke | Tribune reporter
March 19, 2009

A married Near North Side couple claiming to be Kenyan refugees whose lives were in danger managed to scam more than $800,000 from an order of Carmelite sisters in Wisconsin, federal agents allege.

Angela Purity Martin-Mulu, 35, and Edward Bosire, 39, also took nearly $20,000 from a Carmelite monastery in Des Plaines, according to an FBI affidavit filed in Milwaukee.

The two are being held in the federal lockup in Chicago on a mail fraud charge and are due in court in Chicago on Friday. They are awaiting a hearing on facing the charges in Milwaukee.

The husband-and-wife team posed as brother and sister, accepting meals, gas for their car, cash and other aid even though one Illinois bank account held by Martin-Mulu registered $582,831 in deposits from 2003 to 2008, according to the affidavit. At least $24,000 was spent in casinos.

"You feel like you've been stepped on," said Mother Marie Andre, superior at the Carmelite monastery in Des Plaines. The two were apparently targeting Carmelite ministries—Martin-Mulu had a national list of them in her purse when she was detained by security at the Empress Casino in Joliet last year, according to the FBI.

Andre said the two sat in her office, at times sobbing as they told hard-luck stories involving insurance problems, auto repairs and other pressing expenses. As they did in Wisconsin, they said their father was a high-ranking Kenyan official whose life was in danger and they had fled illegally to the U.S., she said.

They said they would face certain death if deported. The FBI determined that the two were in the U.S. legally.

Martin-Mulu and Bosire arrived at the Carmelite monastery in Pewaukee, Wis., in late 2004 and began receiving help shortly after. The couple received checks to pay for treatments for medical conditions Martin-Mulu alleged they had, such as pneumonia, malaria and tuberculosis. There was no record of such care at Northwestern Memorial Hospital or a Wisconsin hospital where the two said they were treated, according to the FBI.

There also was no record they attended Roosevelt University, even though they had sought money from the monastery for tuition and fees.

sschmadeke@tribune.

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