Consultant Seized in Scam on Alien Green Cards

Grand theft charges were filed Tuesday against a Riverside County immigration consultant accused of bilking 25 victims of more than $13,000 while falsely promising to help them receive permanent resident status.

Erasmus Jerry Chavez, 63, of Indio was arrested and charged by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office with 12 counts of felony grand theft stemming from incidents between December, 1984, and December, 1986.

However, “the true number of victims could easily exceed the 25 persons named in our complaint,” said Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner. “Our investigation indicates that Chavez had more than 1,000 client files at his office. He took in between $200,000 and $300,000.”

The case is the first filed by a special task force Reiner formed in his office’s consumer protection division to deal with illegal immigration practices. It was investigated jointly with the Immigration and Naturalization Service and based on information provided two months ago by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Make an Example

“One of the purposes here is to make an example of these people and what they are doing,” Reiner said, “both to educate those persons who are trying to take advantage of the new immigration law as to what to be careful about and also as a threat and a warning to the fraud artists in the field.”

Although the charges deal with acts allegedly committed before the enactment of the nation’s new immigration law, he added, similar cases of fraud are expected under the law.

Authorities said Chavez falsely told potential clients that he was a 25-year veteran of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service who had left government work to set up a nonprofit organization called United States Volunteers of America in 1982.

He also reportedly told clients that his office was one of only four satellite offices in the country authorized by the INS to issue green cards.

Reiner said Chavez charged adults $525 a person to arrange for permanent resident alien green cards, which he promised to deliver within three months to a year. Reportedly none of his clients, mostly married couples, ever got their green cards, and only one couple got their money back.

Out of Business

Chavez’s organization is no longer operating, authorities added.

“Chavez’s victims, although they resided in this country illegally, were by and large responsible people who were seeking through him a legitimate avenue to become legalized citizens,” Reiner said.

Maria Elena Alvarez of El Monte proved to be Chavez’s undoing, authorities said. It was she who first complained to MALDEF about Chavez in February, when she and her husband tried unsuccessfully to get back from Chavez income tax statements and other original documents they needed to apply for amnesty under the new immigration law.

Court Fees

In an interview, Alvarez said her husband, Jose, first went to see Chavez in 1985 at the suggestion of a friend. She said Chavez told him that his own services were free but that court fees and expenses would cost the couple $525 each.

Her husband paid him $1050 for green cards for the two, she said, and referred another six friends to him as well. When Alvarez went to Indio much later to meet Chavez, she became suspicious.

First, she said, Chavez insisted that all his clients drive to Indio weekly to sign a register for the INS (at $10 a visit). Moreover, she said, he told them that an immigration judge held court in his offices in Indio, something she had never heard of happening in the United States. Most suspicious of all, she said, was something she learned in a conversation with a fellow Mexican waiting in Chavez’s office.

“I started talking to this man because his accent sounded very much like the accent from the area around my hometown in Michoacan,” Alvarez said. “It turned out that he was married to Chavez’s niece and Chavez was just taking some information from him, while a lawyer was handling his case. I told my husband this didn’t smell good.”

Green Cards

Although the couple waited for a while for their green cards, they ultimately gave up hope when Chavez failed to return to them original documents, including birth certificates and income tax statements, that they needed to apply for amnesty. It was then, Alvarez said, that she called MALDEF.

“Apparently Chavez was holding a lot of people hostage by refusing to give back original documents so that none of his clients could go to other people,” said Andres Mucino, a district attorney’s senior investigator who worked on the case.

Reiner said that although many of the original documents had been recovered, Chavez was careless in the keeping of his clients’ records.

“Many people may because of this person have lost their original documents that will make it difficult to establish claims of residency (for amnesty),” he said.

In no instance known to authorities, Reiner emphasized, did Chavez actually provide legitimate assistance to his clients.

Chavez, who faces a maximum six-year prison sentence if convicted, was held on $50,000 bail pending his scheduled arraignment today.

Riverside County officials are also investigating Chavez for the possible filing of similar charges there, Reiner said. Additional charges stemming from other victims were not filed in Los Angeles County, Reiner said, because his potential prison sentence could not be increased past the six-year limit covered by the charges that actually were filed.