2 accused in immigration scam (Knoxville News Sentinel)

2 accused in immigration scam
U.S. officials say couple victimized Hispanic workers

* By Jamie Satterfield
* Knoxville News Sentinel
* Posted October 14, 2010 at midnight


It sounds like a showcase of economic diversity - East Tennessee female entrepreneur, Israeli "bodyguard" and 32 Hispanic workers.

Until one considers what federal authorities allege, that is.

They say Johnson City businesswoman Debra Lynn Gouge is a fraud, holding herself out to be an immigration specialist who tricked those 32 illegal immigrants out of nearly $100,000 and used her Israeli citizen ex-husband as both "bodyguard" and false advertisement.

In an indictment drafted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Helen Smith unsealed last week in Greeneville U.S. District Court, Gouge and ex-husband Jawad Lashin are accused in a scheme to trick migrant workers in upper East Tennessee to pay thousands of dollars to Gouge, backed by Lashin as muscle.

The pair "solicited approximately $3,000 each from 32 different undocumented alien workers or the workers' employers, pretending to prepare and submit applications for legal permanent resident status to the appropriate agencies and departments of the United States," Smith wrote. "None of the 32 different undocumented alien workers received legal status as a result of the work that Debra Lynn Gouge, aided and abetted by the defendant, Jawad Lashin, performed."

According to the indictment, Gouge held herself out to be a former immigration agent with special skill in securing legal status for illegal immigrants. She held out as proof of her skill former husband Lashin, an Israeli citizen who Greeneville U.S. Magistrate Judge Dennis Inman has said served as Gouge's "bodyguard."

Gouge recruited business by targeting businesses boasting large numbers of Hispanic workers and networking with Hispanic clients to draw in even more illegal immigrants, court records allege. When clients questioned her immigrant acumen, she pointed to Lashin, despite the fact that she had done nothing to help him acquire U.S. citizenship, the indictment alleged.

Gouge showed the illegal immigrants documents she claimed only an immigration specialist could acquire and file - that, instead, were readily available on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's website - and falsely claimed she filed those documents on their behalf, Smith wrote in the indictment.

Inman called Gouge a "consummate con artist" when he opted last week to order both her and Lashin, whom she divorced in 2007, jailed pending trial.

Gouge is also accused in the indictment of ripping off the Social Security Administration by claiming she was unemployed when, instead, she was padding her bottom line with her fraudulent business bounty. She is charged, too, with robbing the IRS.

While the 32 illegal immigrants identified as victims in the case are now under federal protection as witnesses, Lashin likely will face deportation if convicted, Inman wrote.