Thread: Saudi National Sentenced for Visa Fraud and Harboring Illega

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Saudi National Sentenced for Visa Fraud and Harboring Illegal Aliens
Posted on : Thu, 21 Dec 2006 23:31:59 GMT | Author : U.S. Department of Justice
News Category : PressRelease

BOSTON, Dec. 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A Saudi national living in Winchester was sentenced today in federal court having pleaded guilty to charges of visa fraud and harboring of illegal aliens relating to her employment of two domestic servants.

United States Attorney Michael J. Sullivan; Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Wan J. Kim; Bruce M. Foucart, Special Agent in Charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and Kenneth W. Kaiser, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, announced today that Hana F. Al Jader, age 40, of Winchester, Massachusetts, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Reginald J. Lindsay to 2 years of probation, the first 6 months of which are to be served in home confinement. She was also ordered to complete 100 hours of community service. Judge Lindsay also ordered her to pay a fine of $40,000 and restitution in the amount $206,000 to three of her former domestic servants. Al Jader was also ordered to forfeit a second residence in Arlington. Lastly, Judge Lindsay ordered that Al Jader be deported to her native Saudi Arabia following completion of her term of home confinement.

In September of this year, Al Jader pleaded guilty to two counts of visa fraud and two counts of harboring illegal aliens for private financial gain in connection with her employment of two women from Indonesia as domestic servants.

At the earlier plea hearing, the prosecutor told the Court that Al Jader, who has resided in Winchester and Arlington since the mid-1990's with her invalid husband, Prince Mohamed Al Saud, brought the two Indonesian women to the United States in 2003 to work as domestic servants. In order to obtain visas for the women, Al Jader was required to submit to the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia a copy of a work contract guaranteeing that the women would be paid $1,500 a month and would work no more than 8 hours daily. However, when the women arrived in the United States, they were required to work -- cooking, cleaning, serving meals, caring for the severely disabled Prince, and serving at frequent parties -- routinely in excess of 8 hours per day. Al Jader paid them only $300 a month which, at their request, was wired to their families in Indonesia.

In July, 2003, Al Jader, through an attorney, filed applications with the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services ("BCIS") for a six-month extension of the visas for her domestic servants. In connection with the extension application, Al Jader submitted another employment contract, which again represented falsely that the servants were each being paid $1,500 per month and working only eight hours per day. Based on the false information provided in the contracts, the servants' visas were extended; however, when those extensions expired, Al Jader failed to apply for or obtain any additional extensions. Despite the fact that the servants' legal status had expired, Al Jader continued to employ them for the next 11 months at the same pay rate of $300 per month.

In exchange for Al Jader's plea of guilty to these charges, her agreement to pay restitution of approximately $98,000 to each of the servants, and her acceptance of a stipulated order of deportation to her native Saudi Arabia, the government agreed to dismiss pending charges of forced labor and document servitude against Al Jader.

The case was investigated by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney S. Theodore Merritt in Sullivan's Public Corruption and Special Prosecutions Unit and Lou DeBaca, Special Litigation Counsel, and Barbara Kay Bosserman, Trial Attorney, in the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division.

U.S. Department of Justice

She got off very light. Home confinement and probation.

Hawkeye wrote:

She got off very light. Home confinement and probation.

I'm not sure I agree. Remember, she also had to pay a fine of $40,000 and restitution in the amount of $206,000. Furthermore, she was ordered to forfeit a home in Arlington, Va. and will be deported once her home confinement ends. Now, what I don't understand is why she was given 100 community service hours and 2 years probation. Why would this be necessary since she has been ordered to leave the country upon completion of her 6 month home confinement? Are we going to send a probation officer to Saudi Arabia to enforce her probation? I don't think the Saudi government would approve, nor do I think they will require her to complete a community service requirement issued by another country. Do some of these judges even pay attention to what they are doing or do they just go through the motions?

Shrub will pardon her unless she shoots a drub smuggler in the
butt before her probation ends.