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Six Sailors Charged in N.Y. Marriage Scam

By LARRY NEUMEISTER
The Associated Press
Tuesday, November 15, 2005; 6:58 AM

NEW YORK -- Six U.S. Navy crew members looking for quick and profitable marriages to illegal aliens face federal charges after being among 10 people caught in an FBI sting operation targeting the sham unions, prosecutors said.

The six, assigned to the U.S.S. Eisenhower in Norfolk, Va., were nabbed after the FBI learned that a Baltimore man, Kenneth Adam Howard, 26, was recruiting men and women to enter sham marriages in New York, according to a complaint in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.


Howard, who was among those charged with conspiracy, offered to provide people to marry illegal aliens at a cost of $3,000 to $4,000 per marriage, the complaint said.

His lawyer, James M. Keneally, declined to comment Monday after U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael H. Dolinger set bail at $200,000.

The six Navy members and a former seaman who had been assigned to the U.S.S. Eisenhower came in recent weeks to New York, where they thought they were meeting illegal aliens from Egypt, Russia, South America and Europe, the complaint said.

Instead, they were meeting FBI undercover agents or informants and cooperating witnesses working under the FBI's supervision, prosecutors said.

The defendants could face a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted. Marriage to a U.S. citizen can aid with immigration and employment in America.

The government said one of the Navy defendants told the cooperating witness that the sham marriage would allow her to apply to the Navy for increased financial benefits.