Feds move to deport women arrested in marriage fraud investigation (Virginian-Pilot)

Feds move to deport women arrested in marriage fraud investigation

By Tim McGlone
The Virginian-Pilot
April 22, 2008

NORFOLK
Immigration authorities have begun their push to deport Eastern European women arrested on charges of marrying sailors as a way to stay in the country.
Federal magistrates on Monday denied bond to four women arrested last week, citing detainers, or holds, placed on them by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The women will be processed for deportation through the immigration court in Northern Virginia while their criminal cases are pending here.
Three Navy sailors, from the amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima, also made their first court appearances in the case Monday, but a fourth, Nathaniel A. Reed II, failed to show.
"Mr. Reed has disappeared, at this point," Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph E. DePadilla told Magistrate Tommy E. Miller.
Reed and his three shipmates, Joseph P. Freese, Tristan C. Tucker and Benjamin J. Lampkin, were out at sea when the indictment was made public last week. They face multiple counts of conspiracy, marriage fraud and making false statements. Miller freed the three sailors pending trial.
The sailors are accused, along with other current and former sailors, of marrying illegal immigrants to get additional monthly housing allowances. Their brides, in return, received green cards allowing them to stay in the country.
Federal authorities charged 33 people in the latest round of marriage fraud indictments. Brides arrested in other states were to be returned here to face prosecution.