A Chicago attorney, Gerardo Dean, has been indicted on federal fraud charges. The charges allege that he provided false and fraudulent information to U.S. authorities to secure immigration benefits for foreign national clients.
Dean, who owned a law office in Chicago, is accused of conspiring with Felicitas Cordero, an employee of a company operating skilled-nursing facilities. The indictment filed in the U.S. District Court in Chicago claims that Dean and Cordero submitted fraudulent H-1B and EB-2 visa petitions. These petitions misrepresented that foreign nationals from the Philippines were offered managerial or higher-level positions at the company. In reality, these individuals were intended to work as staff or registered nurses at lower pay rates than stated in the petitions.
Furthermore, Dean and Cordero allegedly instructed these foreign nationals to provide false job descriptions during their consular interviews overseas. This was done with the knowledge that U.S. immigration officials were more likely to approve visa petitions if they involved higher-level positions.
The indictment also states that both Dean and Cordero collected money from the foreign nationals for their services in obtaining these visas fraudulently. Additionally, Dean received payments from the company for his role in this scheme.
Both Dean, aged 58 from Park Ridge, Illinois, and Cordero, aged 76 from Buffalo Grove, Illinois, face one count of conspiracy to commit immigration fraud along with three individual counts of immigration fraud. They have pleaded not guilty before U.S. District Judge Manish S. Shah.
The announcement of the indictment was made by Morris Pasqual, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Sean Fitzgerald, Special Agent-in-Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Chicago; Mark Woods-Hawkins, Special Agent-in-Charge of the U.S. Department of State Diplomatic Security Service’s Chicago Field Office; and James Mead, Special Agent-in-Charge for the Great Lakes Region at the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Inspector General. Assistant U.S. Attorney Prashant Kolluri represents the government in this case.
It is important to note that an indictment only contains charges and does not serve as evidence of guilt. Both defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a fair trial.