Thread: WA-Man gets 18 months in gay immigration fraud

Man gets 18 months in gay immigration fraud

Story Published: Oct 23, 2009 at 12:52 PM PDT

Story Updated: Oct 23, 2009 at 12:52 PM PDT
SEATTLE (AP) - A man accused of advising straight immigrants to claim homosexuality - and potential persecution in their home countries - when they applied for asylum has been sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Steven Mahoney held himself out as an expert in immigration affairs and ran Mahoney and Associates in Kent, which advised immigrants on how to stay in the U.S.

He pleaded guilty in April, acknowledging that between 1998 and 2007 he filed as many as 99 false immigration documents and was paid between $1,000 and $4,000 for each.

In addition to false claims of homosexuality, he advised some clients to claim they could be tortured due to their religious practices or political views.

His ex-wife, Helen Mahoney, was sentenced to six months. Both are naturalized U.S. citizens from Russia.


http://www.komonews.com/news/local/65819537.html

He must have had a good attorney, he deserved more than 18 mos. if they could be counted as 99 seperate counts of fraud, the sentence could have been much more strict.