A Fairfax woman has admitted that she recruited illegal immigrants who paid bribes to a corrupt Department of Homeland Security supervisor in exchange for fraudulent immigration documents. Sherry He pleaded guilty in federal court in Alexandria to a charge of procurement of unlawful citizenship.
She admitted that she brought illegal immigrants to Robert Schofield, a former DHS officer in the Citizenship and Immigration Services division who is serving a 15-year prison sentence for accepting bribes to falsify immigration documents that let illegal aliens become U.S. citizens.
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She brought Schofield about 24 clients between 1995 and 2005, her plea agreement says. Those clients included both of her parents and her two sisters, according to court records.
People would make payments to He, who then introduced them to Schofield, court documents say. He would then provide the immigrants with fraudulent documents, including naturalization certificates and stamps that indicate lawful permanent resident — known as “green card” — status in return for bribes.
One couple who did that was Guansheng Wang and Xiaowen Qian, a Falls Church husband and wife who also pleaded guilty last week.
Their plea agreements say the pair paid $16,000 to He — some of which she then paid to Schofield — for unlawful naturalization certificates that they received from the DHS supervisor in 2002.
Both pleaded guilty to unlawful procurement of citizenship charges; Wang also pleaded guilty to making a false statement. All three were also indicted on other counts, including conspiracy to commit immigration fraud, bribery and passport fraud, but those charges were dropped.
Wang, the owner of a Vienna-based systems and information services business that does training and consulting, used his fake citizenship credentials to obtain a government security clearance and contracts, according to his plea agreement.
Wang’s case is “unfortunate,” his attorney, Joseph Flood, said.
“Mr. Wang has been a very productive member of our society,” he said. Wang initially believed he was getting the immigration benefits lawfully, Flood said.
Qian and He could both be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison; Wang could get up to 15 years.
Cary Greenberg, He’s attorney, said he would ask that she be sentenced to supervised release because she has no criminal history.
Qian’s attorney could not be reached.
Schofield was charged in 2006 and pleaded guilty later that year. Others who received immigration benefits from him have also faced criminal charges.
