Thread: Flight school guilty in visa fraud

Flight school guilty in visa fraud

Company forfeits $250,000 in plea deal

By Greg Moran, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Saturday, May 22, 2010 at 12:04 a.m.

FEDERAL COURT — A flight school and its former owners pleaded guilty to visa fraud and hiring illegal workers as instructors, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Andrew Burr of Henderson, Nev., and Christopher Watson of San Diego each pleaded guilty Thursday to misdemeanor charges of hiring illegal workers.

The flight school they used to own, Anglo American Aviation at Gillespie Field in El Cajon, was also charged and pleaded guilty to felony counts of creating false visa documents and making false statements to obtain them.

The case resonates in San Diego, where two of the 9/11 hijackers lived for a time and took flight training.

Watson and Burr were each sentenced to five years’ probation by U.S. Magistrate Judge Anthony Battaglia. The sentence also bans them from working in any flight school or any educational institutions that serves foreign students. The plea agreement also calls for the company to forfeit $250,000.

The felony charges focus on August to October 2007, said Mike Carney, acting special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego. At that time, the flight school no longer had Federal Aviation Administration certification to provide a certain type of flight training for students wishing to be commercial pilots.

That certification allows flight schools to issue an I-20 form to foreign students wanting to enroll, Carney said. To do so, they access the Student Exchange Visitor Information System, a government program known as SEVIS that was set up after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to track visitors using student visas.

Foreign students then use that form to obtain a visa from the State Department, he said.

Jeremy Warren, the lawyer for Burr and Watson and the school, said the owners had allowed the accreditation to lapse. Nonetheless, for the next several months, Carney said, the school made false statements through SEVIS to get I-20 forms issued for 103 students.

Carney said that the 53 students able to enter the country were tracked down and that none was found to be a national security threat.

Carney said it was still a serious matter. “By violating the law, they opened up the possibility for people who don’t have the U.S.’s best interests at heart to enter the country and receive flight training,â€

Yet the owners only get probation

CE Busts California Flight School in Massive Visa Fraud Scheme

Published May 25, 2010

| FOXNews.com

The former owners of a California flight school have pleaded guilty in a massive visa fraud scheme in which they hired illegal immigrants as flight instructors — a scam that immigration officials say posed a "significant" threat to national security.

Andrew Burr and Christopher Watson, the former president and vice president of Anglo-American Aviation, pleaded guilty Thursday to misdemeanor counts of hiring unauthorized workers, part of a larger felony case against their company that was the culmination of a two-year investigation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

ICE officials found that from 2001-2008, the company hired 11 illegal immigrants as flight instructors.

"The actions by the defendants in this case not only undermined the integrity of our nation's legal immigration system, they also posed a significant national security risk," said Joe Garcia, acting special agent in charge for the ICE Office of Investigations in San Diego.

ICE investigators focused on a four-month period in the summer of 2007, when the school issued visa documents to more than 100 foreign students, even though the Federal Aviation Administration had revoked their certification to train commercial pilots.

The company was abusing an online database developed in the wake of 9/11 to track foreign students, according to ICE officials. Without that FAA certification, the company was forbidden to issue I-20 immigration documents to its students, who used the forms to get visas from the State Department.

ICE investigators successfully tracked down 53 of the students — more than half of those trained in the summer of 2007, according to ICE statements — and said none were found to pose a security risk. They provided no information on those they failed to locate.

At the hearing Thursday, Burr and Watson were sentenced to five years' probation, and along with the flight school must forfeit $250,000 in illegal profits.

Anglo-American Aviation Inc. also pleaded guilty to felony charges for making false statements and creating false visa documents, and will be sentenced on June 21.

The company now operates under a different name — American Aviation Academy — but uses the same mailing address and phone number in San Diego, where two of the 9/11 hijackers received flight training.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/25/ic ... latestnews

Originally Posted by Texas2step

Yet the owners only get probation :cry:

At the hearing Thursday, Burr and Watson were sentenced to five years' probation, and along with the flight school must forfeit $250,000 in illegal profits.

Anglo-American Aviation Inc. also pleaded guilty to felony charges for making false statements and creating false visa documents, and will be sentenced on June 21.

JohnDoe2 wrote:
"Texas2step wrote:
Yet the owners only get probation

"Quote:
At the hearing Thursday, Burr and Watson were sentenced to five years' probation, and along with the flight school must forfeit $250,000 in illegal profits.

Anglo-American Aviation Inc. also pleaded guilty to felony charges for making false statements and creating false visa documents, and will be sentenced on June 21."

Somehow I don't consider being required to forfeit illegal profits an unreasonable expectation.