BANGOR, Maine — An investigation into a multistate marriage fraud conspiracy that led to the conviction of 28 defendants in Maine apparently will conclude Tuesday afternoon with the sentencing of Margaret Kimani, 30, of Worcester, Mass., in U.S. District Court.
After Kimani is sentenced, Maine’s U.S. Attorney Thomas E. Delahanty II and Bruce Foucart, special agent in charge for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations in Boston, will hold a joint press conference about the conspiracy at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Margaret Chase Smith Federal Building in Bangor. The press conference will be broadcast to the U.S. Attorney’s Office located in Portland at 100 Middle St., East Tower on the sixth floor, according to a press release issued Monday by Delahanty’s office.
“Launched in 2005 by HSI, the investigation identified over 40 sham marriages in the Lewiston-Auburn and Newport areas between U.S. citizens from Maine and nationals of Kenya, Uganda, Zambia and Cameroon,” the press release said. “The Maine residents were paid to marry the foreign nationals and to assist them in fraudulently seeking to obtain a marriage-based change in their immigration status to that of a lawful permanent resident, or green card holder.”
Kimani appears to be the last defendant in the cases prosecuted in Maine. It is the practice of the U.S. Attorney’s Office not to discuss cases until after sentencings. Information about cases possibly pending in other states was not available early Tuesday.
A federal jury of seven women and five men in December found Kimani, a native of Kenya, guilty of entering into a sham marriage and falsely claiming she had been abused so she could remain in the U.S. and eventually become a citizen. She was convicted of one count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S.
Kimani married a Maine man in Lewiston on Dec. 30, 2003, nearly two years after her visitor’s visa expired Feb. 3, 2002, in order to gain U.S. citizenship more easily, according to court documents.
She was indicted by a federal grand jury in August 2012 but was not arrested until 13 months later when she returned from a visit to her native Kenya. She has been held without bail since her arrest Sep. 5, 2013, at JFK International Airport in New York City.
Kimani is one of 28 African and American citizens who have been charged in federal court in Maine in connection with the scheme hatched by Rashid Kakande, 41, of Lexington, Mass., and James Mbugua, 53, of Springfield, Mass., according to court documents. The men had family connections in Lewiston.
Kakande was sentenced in June 2011 to two years in prison after being convicted of the same crime of which Kimani is accused. He also was ordered to pay a $20,000 fine. Kakande was released in August 2012, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons’ Inmate Locator website. He was expected to be deported.
Mbugua, who arranged Kimani’s marriage, disappeared in 2010 before he could be tried and is listed as a fugitive on the court’s electronic case filing system.
The man Kimani married but never lived with, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, has not been charged, so he is not being named by the Bangor Daily News. Kimani’s husband was drawn into the scheme by a friend who also lived in Lewiston.
Although Kimani’s husband provided her and Mbugua with identification documents, tax forms, passport photos, a birth certificate and signed documents on her behalf, he was never interviewed by immigration officials, according to the trial brief. In July 2006, Kimani filed documents under the Violence Against Women Act in which she falsely claimed her husband had been physically, sexually and emotionally abusive.
The act permits “a lawfully admitted alien who has been subjected to abuse by her U.S. citizen spouse to petition for permanent residence in the United States without the knowledge or approval of the U.S. citizen spouse,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Gail Malone, who is prosecuting Kimani, said in her trial brief.
Kimani was awarded lawful permanent residency in March 2010 based on the false information, according to the prosecutor.
She still is legally married in Maine but did not really understand that what she was doing was illegal, her attorney Zachary Brandmeir said during her trial.
Kimani faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Under the prevailing federal sentencing guidelines, she faces up to six months in prison, which she already has served, according to Brandmeir. Once she has served her sentence, Kimani is expected to be deported.
Watch bangordailynews.com for updates.