Consultant Pleads Guilty to Theft in Immigration Scam

A Riverside County immigration consultant who claimed he was a former federal immigration agent pleaded guilty to five felony counts of grand theft Thursday and agreed to make full restitution of $9,000 to 24 of his former clients.

The plea is the first settlement of a criminal case filed by a special task force formed by Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner last March to deal with illegal immigration practices.

Under the settlement, Erasmus Jerry Chavez, 63, was released from jail and will serve no more time if he completes restitution of the full $9,000, the district attorney’s office said. If he fails to make the payments, he will have to serve another year. He has served 60 days.

His guilty plea was to all counts in an amended complaint that had been reduced to five counts from the original 12, but included all the original 24 victims.

At the time Chavez was charged in June, the district attorney’s office said he had many of the original documents of aliens who had paid $525 each to arrange for permanent resident alien green cards. Those documents--including birth certificates and tax statements--are to be returned to their owners under the settlement.

Because Chavez had refused to release such records, some of his victims had been unable to apply for amnesty, the district attorney’s office said.

Chavez, who called his business United States Volunteers of America, reportedly told his clients that his services were free and that his charges of $525 per adult went solely for court fees and expenses. The operation was halted after one of his victims took the matter to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

The case was investigated jointly by the district attorney’s office and the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, which reported that it was in the process of withdrawing the certification of Chavez’s business.