14 indicted on charges of arranging sham marriages

[alp227]

Source: Associated Press

Sacramento --

A federal grand jury in Sacramento has indicted 14 people on charges of arranging sham marriages to immigrants from Russia, Ukraine and Eastern European nations to help them stay in the United States, U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner said Tuesday.

The indictment was unsealed after the man charged with being the ringleader, Sergey Potepalov, 55, was arrested Monday at his home in the Sacramento suburb of Citrus Heights.

He and the others had "made a business out of marriage fraud" since 2002, arranging at least nine marriages to circumvent immigration laws, Wagner said. They attempted at least 39 marriages, although not all were included in the indictment, said Dan Lane, assistant special agent in charge of the Department of Homeland Security investigations office in Sacramento.

"We're not talking about downtrodden people that are looking for a way to get to a better life. We're talking about people making a profit," Lane said at a news conference. "It exploits our generous immigration system that's designed to help people with humanitarian reasons to come here, compassionate reasons."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/27/BAPE1KFC9B.DTL

[MADem]

1. Good grief, those people who marry these folks are bought off rather cheaply!!!

Five lousy thousand bucks? I should think they'd want a higher price than that!!!

Foreign nationals paid up to $10,000 to Potepalov and an associate, Keith O'Neil, 44, of Sacramento, to arrange for the marriages. U.S. citizens who agreed to the marriages were paid up to $5,000.

[Blue_Tires]

5. We had a similar case a few years back

with some enlisted navy guys...$5000 is a LOT for a 19-23 year old, and he might even get some bedroom funtime as part of the bargain...

[damntexdem]

2. Did they serve champagne at the sham marriages?

;-)

[Kingofalldems]

3. I got an offer to do that once

Turned it down and good thing too.

[closeupready]

4. Apparently, some people used to actually make a living out of that.

A friend of mine here in NY told me that pre-9/11, it was a cottage industry amongst some people here.

[butterfly77]

6. They have been doing it for decades..

with the help of those in the government but,other races of people need not apply. Why do others come to America illegaly and live better and than those who have been here for decades no matter what the race.

People who were born here catch more hell..I heard many stories about this during the bush years. Many of these people are the republiCON base.

[SaveAmerica]

7. We know it's the Messicans and they're pretending to be from You Crane

[IScreamSundays]

8. o my frigging gawd!!! no way??? There are actually people

doing this in this country and making 5 Grand. This is an OUTRAGE, I tell you. Someone needs to convene congress. We need hearings, we need a committee, we need a study to find out what the hell is going on. We need to find out what is going on with these harlots that would DARE to circumvent our immigration laws with these; these people.