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Regina Johnson, 59, and her sister, Andrea Torres, ran the sham scam for nearly three years, recruiting and paying U.S. citizens to pose as spouses, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said.
Their clients: non-citizens looking to remain in the country despite the lack of legal status or proper documentation.
As part of the fraud, the sisters "arranged and charged their clients for wedding ceremonies and afterparties that were staged to make the sham marriages appear legitimate," Sellinger said.
They also "advised their clients on ways to make their marriage appear legitimate on paper, including the opening of joint bank accounts and frequent meetings with their U.S. spouses," he said.
The sisters -- who officiated at some of the bogus unions -- went so far as pushing clients to take photos in a variety of locations in different clothing to make it appear that they were living together when they weren't, the U.S. attorney said.
Then they "helped their non-citizen clients fill out immigration forms to obtain permanent residency on the basis of materially false misrepresentations," he said.
Johnson and Torres took deals from the government rather than risk the potential outcome of a trial by pleading guilty in federal court in Newark to conspiring to harbor non-U.S. citizens.
Torres’s son, Philip Torres, who was also charged in the scheme, previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy.
U.S. District Judge Esther Salas scheduled the sentencings for all three for Dec. 14.
Sellinger credited special agents of the Department of Homeland Security's Homeland Security Investigation with the investigation leading to the plea, secured by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sammi Malek of his National Security Unit and Assistant U.S. Attorney Blake A. Coppotelli of his Economic Crimes Unit, both in Newark.
The convicts "undermined our nation’s criminal laws," said HSI Newark Special Agent in Charge Ricky J. Patel, "which can jeopardize the national security and public safety of the United States."
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