Dozens nabbed in massive marriage scam case
Immigration scrutiny cited in crackdown on alleged Houston plot
The Houston woman allegedly ran a one-stop shop for greencard marriages, complete with age-appropriate American spouses, Photoshopped wedding albums and cheat sheets to help strangers prepare for interviews with federal agents.
She advertised on Facebook in Vietnamese — and at least 150 immigrants from her homeland signed up, paying as much as $70,000 each for the promise of permanent legal status in the United States, according to court documents. In some instances, the woman paired the new arrivals with U.S. citizens linked to Houston street gangs, prosecutors said.
Then federal agents noticed a pattern. Immigration petitions from Houston were arriving in the same type of envelope with a nearly identical cover letter filled out in a similar cursive script. Every one of 30 petitions had been mailed from the same Houston
post office, according to testimony.
Ultimately, a federal grand jury indicted 96 people this spring in what prosecutors said was one of the largest marriage-fraud conspiracies documented in the Houston region. More than 200 charges have been brought against dozens of briefly acquainted couples and others accused of helping to facilitate the large-scale operation. The alleged ringleader’s common-law husband is accused of ferrying the couples to court for impromptu nuptials and to immigration interviews. Her adult daughter is charged with recruiting former classmates from her Alief high school to be fake spouses in exchange for money.
The focal point of the Justice Department’s case is the alleged mastermind of the scheme, Ashley “Duyen” Yen Nguyen, a naturalized U.S. citizen who reportedly works as a home health aide. The government says her job description is also fraudulent. A judge ordered the 53-yearold grandmother to await trial in federal custody, ruling she was a flight risk with ties to gang members and a danger to dozens of witnesses prepared to testify against her.
The massive investigation sheds light on a less-controversial component of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration offenses. Marriage fraud cases appear on the rise, according to a conservative group that closely tracks immigration. And defense lawyers said big prosecutions like this one require deep resources from the federal courts.
Defendants in the Nguyen case face trial on an array of charges, including conspiracy, marriage fraud, immigration fraud, mail fraud, forgery and making false statements under oath. The federal court system does not track marriage fraud per se, but lawyers and immigration advocates said they’ve noted an uptick since Donald Trump became president.
Matthew J. O’Brien, research director for FAIR, which favors reduced immigration, said it appears that Immigration and Customs Enforcement under Trump “has been more likely to charge defendants accused of marriage fraud” as part of a more aggressive posture toward illegal immigration. But he thinks the convicts don’t reflect the scope of violations because prosecutors often resolve two-person fraud cases administratively rather than through criminal charges.
It’s a lot of hullabaloo for a minor payoff, say some defense lawyers. They say marriage fraud is a low-ranking felony. An immigrant with no criminal background may serve a brief sentence followed by deportation. A citizen with no criminal record could spend a few months in prison or be sentenced to probation.
A case this large is rare and it clogs up the docket, lawyers said.
“The court system is not used to handling cases with this many defendants,” said David Adler, an attorney who provides support to the 40 Criminal Justice Act lawyers for defendants who can’t afford counsel. “It’s a strain on all the participants, the marshals, the translators, the court staff.”
Trump camp ‘at work’
The last time that a case close to this size landed in Houston was roughly 20 years ago, and the government installed temporary bleachers in the courtroom to accommodate the defendants, said David Bradley, the federal clerk for the region.
The trial in this case likely won’t happen for many months. The number of defendants who have pleaded guilty or intend to — and agree to testify — will reduce the crowd at the defense table. In the meantime, the marriage fraud case has created a traffic jam at hearings, with more than 100 defense lawyers appearing on the record and three prosecutors shuffling from court to court handling dozens of early hearings.
One lawyer voiced concern over what the gargantuan prosecution means for his client, who is accused of being a runner for the operation.
“When the government decides to indict nearly 100 individuals and citizens… it causes a strain on the system and endangers the accused's right to fair and speedy trial,” said Ali Fazel. “Everyone should be concerned and alarmed.”
Defendant Trang Le Nguyen is an immigration lawyer with a practice on Westheimer Road. She is accused of mail fraud, conspiracy, witness tampering and obstructing justice; her lawyers say she has been a victim of “a rush to judgment.”
They say the attorney did not know the marriages were fraudulent. “She’s worked so hard to establish her life, her career,” said David Gerger. “After our client prevails, we have to ask: who is going to give her her life back?”
Eight defendants had entered guilty pleas and 25 were fugitives as of June 28, according to court documents.
Attorney Richard Kuniansky, whose 50-year-old client pleaded guilty this month to participating in a sham marriage, said the case reflects a conscious effort by the White House to prosecute violations of immigration law.
“I’ve been doing this for 40 years and this is the first time I can recall seeing a case of this magnitude,” Kuniansky said “I assume this is the Trump administration at work pulling the strings to do anything regarding immigration prosecutions.”
At the center of the case is Nguyen, who says she is innocent. Her own journey from Vietnam to Houston began with a fiancé visa, an official said. She met [the groom] at a wedding party in 2000, said attorney Marc Carter. They married in 2002 and Nguyen and her daughter moved to the U.S. The couple lived together for several years.
The marriage ended in divorce in the wake of an incident involving police where he allegedly harmed Nguyen’s daughter, her lawyer said. However, prosecutors allege Nguyen’s marriage was a sham based on documentation that her husband was married to another woman the whole time he was married to her.
Elaborate plot alleged
Paul Skinner, a special agent from Homeland Security Investigations, testified that the man whom Nguyen wed has been married more than a dozen times since 1985, including four unions with Vietnamese women who subsequently applied for permanent immigrant status.
Nguyen and her daughter, both U.S. citizens, are accused of being among the first to enter into sham marriages with customers in 2016 and 2013, turning in documents with forged signatures, false sworn statements with fictitious addresses and employment verification letters, according to documents.
In arguing for bond recently, Carter said the court’s impression of her was skewed by the charges. Her nickname, Duyen, means “easygoing,” and that’s how she is viewed in the Vietnamese community, Carter told the judge: She was industrious, took care of elderly people, and generally looked out after others.
But prosecutors believe Nguyen was carrying out a sinister plot in plain sight.
One home she owned in Westchase, southwest of downtown Houston, was allegedly known to co-defendants as the “Money House.” That’s where her crew handed out stipends to U.S. citizens who married immigrants, according to testimony.
Her daughter, Khanh Phuong Nguyen, 24, recruited some people she knew from Elsik High School, Agent Skinner testified. Nguyen has pleaded “not guilty,” and her lawyer said he’s working to disprov e the charges and establish that “she does not belong in this indictment.”
The agent said citizen spouses were promised installments totaling $15,000 to $20,000 if they followed through with sham marriages. The government says Nguyen cut these deals at least 150 times.
The first takers were several members of a crew called SPPL-13, a small and recently inactive gang that operates in the Club Creek and Sharpstown Mall area, according to Caroline Dozier, a gang expert at the Harris County District Attorney’s Office. The gang’s acronym stands for Somos Pocos Pero Locos — “We are Few, but Crazy.” Another recruited spouse was connected to the Houston chapter of Tango Blast. The scheme expanded to non-gang members, according to testimony, and spouses could earn extra if they recruited others.
One recruit has an intellectual ability, said his lawyer, Andres Sanchez, adding that Nguyen’s organization manipulated him into signing up.
Several of the immigrants who have pleaded guilty to participating in fake unions said they had been living in the U.S. on expired visas when they sought help. Others saw the ads on Facebook and crossed the ocean to enter into the scheme, according to testimony.
Skinner alleges that Nguyen paid the Americans’ airfare to Vietnam, where they’d meet their age-appropriate partners. She gave the travelers money to cover expenses overseas. When the arranged couples returned to Houston, a driver brought them to see Nguyen at another home with bars on the windows, also in Westchase. There her crew completed the forms and provided supporting documentation — fraudulent tax and employment documents and utility bills — and took care of mailing the doctored packets to Citizenship and Immigration Services, Skinner said.
Nguyen seemed to think of everything. There was a room with fake backdrops where couples could pose for staged photos. They could also have their faces Photoshopped into a variety of scenes as evidence of their joint history. Sometimes the newlyweds would get real snapshots taken of themselves shopping for groceries at an Asian market. Couples could choose from dozens of suits and dresses in different sizes at Nguyen’s house before a driver transported them to the courthouse to tie the knot.
Defendants called victims
Brides could select from an assortment of makeup. Nguyen also let the couples pick wedding bands from a glass bowl full of rings in different sizes, according to testimony.
The immigrants paid her installments totaling $30,000 to $70,000, the agent said. The package included pre-written answers to questions such as, “how did you meet” or “what do you typically do on Sundays.”
At a recent hearing, lead prosecutor Adam Goldman drilled down on this point in direct examination of the DHS agent.
“And in any of this 150, in any of these interviews, did any of the couples or parties — (the) husband and wife know each other before Ms. Nguyen’s involvement?”
No, the agent said. Authorities testified at subsequent hearings there was evidence the operation facilitated 500 to 1,000 additional sham marriages.
Defense lawyer Wendell Odom thinks that, at its core, the case is a tragic outcome of the American dream.
“This scheme to defraud is a heartbreak as well as a crime,” Odom said, noting that he was not speaking about his client. “A lot of these defendants are victims as well as co-defendants.”
“They knowingly paid money to come into the U.S. and they committed fraud in pretending to be married,” he said. “But they also paid a family’s life savings…and after they serve their sentences they will be sent back having lost everything.”