A 60-year-old former resident of Atherton, who had a lawyer practice in San Jose, was delivered from the Kyrgyz Republic in Central Asia to design a federal court in San Jose in relation to a controversial visa program for gaining foreign employees.
Danhong “Jean” Chen, also often called Maria Sofia Taylor, was charged together with her ex-husband Jianyun “Tony” Ye in 2019. The couple was accused in reference to the federal EB-5 visa program with which foreign residents can live permanently within the US Currently 800,000 to 1,050,000 US dollars – in corporations that create jobs for US employees.
Ye guilty of fraud and disability of the judiciary in 2021, was sentenced to 1 yr in prison and, in line with the US Ministry of Justice, was released.
Immediately after the submission of the US Securities and Exchange Commission from the United States, a civil grievance in 2018 fled against her, her and two others who claimed that that they had not submitted investments properly and broken several laws, the Ministry of Justice said in a press release on Friday. Around the identical time, in line with the department, Chen became a naturalized citizen of the tiny Dominica of the Caribbean Island Nation Offer of citizenship for payments out of $ 100,000 in a fund or an actual estate investment of $ 200,000.
Last month, President Donald Trump announced a plan for a 5 million dollar program for “Gold Card”, which might give foreign residents a green card. Minister of Commerce Howard Lutnick said the cardboard would replace the EB-5 programwhat he described as “full of nonsense, belief and fraud”.
Trump claimed that one million gold cards may very well be sold and picked up 5 trillion dollars. Invested within the United States, a trade group that focuses on the EB-5 reported that 14,169 EB-5-visa were exhibited last yr. Chinese residents are the dominant recipients of the visa and received 69%of them last yr, whereby the Vietnamese residents achieved 12%and 6%, the group reported.
At the request of the US government within the Republic of the Kyrgyz, the department said.
She was the one partner in Jean D. Chen's legal offices in North San Jose, a law firm that’s exceeded in immigration law, said the department.
“The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has prepared and presented fraudulent documents that contained incorrect signatures and incorrectly described how applicants would qualify for the EB-5 program,” the Ministry of Justice claimed.
Chen's law firm, claimed the department, represented clients who contributed around $ 52 million in projects as a part of the EB-5 program.
Chen is charged due to 10 cases of Visa fraud, two cases of disability of the judiciary and various severe identity theft. For years she looks in prison and lots of of 1000’s of dollars of fines.
She was speculated to appear in front of the US district court in San Jose on Friday afternoon.
The EB-5 program has proven to be a fertile soil for fraud artists in Bay Area. In January 2023, the 72 -year -old Thomas Henderson from Oakland was sentenced to 16 months in prison after his company had collected greater than 100 million US dollars from foreign investors from foreign investors as a part of this system and used money from 42 investors to finance projects and firms outside of their planned investments. Henderson's co -swörer Cooper Lee owed and received three years of probation.
In 2020, the lawyer Jennifer Yang was sentenced by Palo Alto to almost 4 years in prison after finding guilty for a program for fraud by foreign investors within the EB-5 program. Between 2007 and 2016, Yang, 52, and co-conspirators Daniel Wu from Las Vegas submitted fraudulent EB-5 applications for seven foreign residents who gave them around $ 6 million for investments. But the couple spent the cash of the investors for cars, luxury hotel accommodations and a money purchase of a 2.5 million dollar house for Yang and their family, while the roles that they had created didn’t exist, said the Ministry of Justice.
In 2019, the businesswoman of San Mateo County, Bethany Liou, 55, and their company Golden California Regional Center with the SEC, after the agency had accused them of distracting at the least $ 45 million from foreign residents who wanted to speculate in a Cupertino real estate development as a part of the EB-5 program. The company, which belonged exclusively Liou, said that the SEC's allegations had not admitted or denied that the agency didn’t accuse them of “deliberate fraud” and didn’t get a advantageous.
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