Man sentenced in marriage fraud
A man who married a Russian woman so she could obtain U.S. immigration status and stay in the country was sentenced Monday to two months in federal prison.
Benjamin Claude Adams, 30, apologized to U.S. District Judge John Walter at his sentencing.
“I’m painfully and regretfully sorry that I committed this crime,” Adams said.
He pleaded guilty in January to two felony charges of marriage fraud and making a false statement
Prosecutors said he married Yuliya Mikhailovna Kalinina, 25, a month after responding to an online ad on Craigslist offering prospective husbands up to $15,000 to wed her.
Later, Kalinina leased a new Ford Mustang for Adams, a U.S. citizen, as payment for the marriage, prosecutors said.
Kalinina was convicted in February of marriage fraud after a one-day trial at which she admitted to posting the ad, which cast the arrangement as a “green card marriage.”
She faces up to five years in federal prison when sentenced April 28.
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