INS Supervisor Gets Jail Term for Perjury Conviction

A former supervisor for the Immigration and Naturalization Service was sentenced to a year and a day in prison Tuesday for lying in a failed attempt to shield two former co-workers from bribery charges.

Alvaro A. Bracamonte, 56, of Huntington Beach was sentenced in Los Angeles federal court by U.S. District Judge Laughlin E. Waters after his conviction last month on perjury charges in the trial of Robert and Dorothy Anaya.

The Anayas were convicted last year of accepting bribes from 36 Taiwanese citizens who were seeking permanent resident status in the United States. They had posed as Buddhist monks and nuns in an effort to benefit from a federal law giving preference to foreign clergy seeking residence.

Bracamonte testified at the Anayas’ trial that he had loaned them $160,000. Prosecutors contended the money came from bribes the couple had collected. Evidence showed that the couple spent more than $600,000 in 1981 and 1982 while earning about $35,000 each at their INS jobs.

At his trial last month, Bracamonte testified that he had invested the money with the Anayas.

As a supervisor in the INS office in Santa Ana, Bracamonte was responsible for six agents who investigated immigration fraud. He was fired from the $41,000-a-year job after his conviction.

Bracamonte will be eligible for parole in four months, according Assistant U.S. Atty. Maurice A. Leiter, who had urged Laughlin to sentence Bracamonte to prison, saying the commission of the crime by a law enforcement official was particularly blameworthy.

Bracamonte had been worked for the INS for 17 years.