DOS OIG Announces Sentencing in Immigration Fraud Case

Office of the Inspector General

PRESS RELEASE

For further information contact Patricia Yorkman at (202) 647-5015.

March 7, 2003

Kooritzky Sentenced

The Office of the Inspector General of the U. S. Department of State announces the sentencing of Samuel G. Kooritzky on charges of conspiracy, labor certification fraud, making false statements, immigration fraud, and money laundering.  The Honorable Leonie M. Brinkema sentenced Mr. Kooritzky today for ten years imprisonment.  She also ordered Mr. Kooritzky to pay restitution to his victims and to forfeit $2,300,000 in unlawful proceeds to the United States.  Under an agreement with the United States, Mr. Kooritzky agreed to waive appeal in this case and to plead guilty to one count of extortion in a related, but pending case against him. 

Samuel G. Kooritzky, age 64 of Vienna, Virginia, is an attorney and the owner of the Capital Law Centers in Arlington, Virginia; Langley Park, Maryland; and Washington, D.C.  On December 11, 2002, he was convicted by a jury in the Eastern District of Virginia of fifty-seven felony violations of federal law: one count of conspiracy, fifteen counts of labor certification fraud, twenty counts of making false statements, twenty counts of immigration fraud, and one count of money laundering.

The charges against Mr. Kooritzky stemmed from his efforts to file fraudulent applications for alien employment certification with the United States Department of Labor on behalf of Northern Virginia businesses and local immigrants.  These applications ostensibly sought to convince the Department of Labor that the businesses wanted to hire the immigrants because the businesses could not find U.S. workers willing to fill job openings.  When approved, the applications allowed the immigrant involved to apply for a green card to live and work in the United States.  In practice, however, none of the businesses listed in the applications had authorized the applications.  Rather, the applications contained a false job offer and the forged signature of a manager of the business in question. Mr. Kooritzky presented the applications as legitimate to the immigrants who signed the applications and charged each immigrant between $7,000 and $20,000 per application.

Mr. Kooritzky’s conviction is the fourth conviction to come from a yearlong investigation into labor certification fraud conducted by the United States Department of Labor, the Office of Inspector General and Bureau of Diplomatic Security in United States Department of State, the Internal Revenue Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the Fairfax County Police Department. The other convictions involved three individuals who assisted Mr. Kooritzky to prepare the fraudulent applications: Ronald Bogardus, Inderjeet Kaur, and Carolina Trana. Mr. Bogardus was a contract employee of the Department of State; Ms. Kaur and Ms. Trana worked for Mr. Kooritzky.

In total, Mr. Kooritzky and his associates filed over 2,700 fraudulent applications with the Department of Labor and the Immigration and Naturalization Service in the space of eighteen months, making this case one of the largest labor certification frauds ever prosecuted.